CHAPTER 5

Mental Health Care for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

Introduction

Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AA/PIs) are diverse in ethnicity (See Figure 5-1) and in their historical experiences in the United States. As many as 43 different ethnic groups (Lee, 1998) have struggled as immigrants, refugees, or American-born Asian Americans to overcome prejudice and discrimination on the path to achievements ranging from the building of the first transcontinental railroad to innovations in medicine and technology. Asian immigrants now account for about 4 percent of the U. S. population. The majority of AA/PIs were born overseas (See Figure 5-2), and Asian Americans constitute more than one-quarter of the foreign-born population in the United States.

AA/PIs are a fast-growing racial group in the United States. The population grew 95 percent from 3.7 in 1980 to 7.2 in 1990. From 1990 to 2000¹, the number of people identifying as Asian American, or Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander grew another 44 percent to 10 million for Asian Americans and 350,000 for Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (U.S. Census Bureau, 2001b). It is projected that by the year 2020, the combined AA/PI population will reach approximately 20 million, or about 6 percent of the total U.S. population. American-born Asian and Pacific Island Americans will outnumber the foreign-born ones by 2020 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000).

Given the high proportion of recent immigrants, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States have, as a group, great linguistic diversity. They speak over 100 languages and dialects. Estimates from reports covering the 1990s indicate that 35 percent of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders live in linguistically isolated households, where no one age 14 or older speaks English “very well.” For some Asian American ethnic groups, this rate is much higher. For example, 61 percent of Hmong American, 56 percent of Cambodian American, 52 percent of Laotian American, 44 percent of Vietnamese American, 41 percent of Korean American, and 40 percent of Chinese American house-holds are linguistically isolated (President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, 2001).

¹ Because the Office of Management and Budget has separated Asian Americans from Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders (OMB, 2000), Census 2000 lists “Asian” and “Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander” as separate racial categories.