National survey of Chinese Americans shows negative effects of discrimination, mistreatment on mental health

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A new national survey has detailed the negative effects of discrimination and xenophobia on the mental health of Chinese Americans.

Committee of 100 , a nonprofit that focuses on the causes and issues of Chinese Americans, has released its 2024 “State of Chinese Americans” study. According to its findings, 68% of Chinese Americans stated they face at least one form of discrimination in an average month, while 43% said they felt depressed and 39% reported feeling worthless.

Vivian Chang, executive director of Philadelphia-based organization Asian Americans United , said she wasn’t surprised at the results. “The way that folks have talked about Chinatown in really demeaning ways to promote xenophobia and racism — that's going to affect anyone's mental health,” she said.

In addition, 61% of survey respondents said that the language and rhetoric used by the U.S. news media when reporting on relations between the U.S. and China negatively affected how strangers treat them — and, 89% of Chinese Americans viewed the current relationship between the two nations as negative.

Chang said many people live in isolated communities and their only interactions with Asians are through the media.

“If a person sees themselves reflected poorly in the media, they see themselves mistreated, like people who look like them are just either completely missing or made as a joke, then that's going to hurt their self-esteem,” she said. “That's going to make them feel like they don't belong in this country.”

According to Chang, it's assumed by many people that Chinese Americans don't face racism. However, she noted it just looks different than what folks are accustomed to seeing.

“Those who face microaggressions at work when they're made fun of for their accent, they're experiencing direct harassment on the street,” she said. “I personally have people shout things at me when I'm just walking around.”

The study also revealed that a large percentage of the Chinese American community continues to struggle with mental health. Chang said one way of combating both the hateful rhetoric and the mental health struggles that result is community power, with people banding together to support their community and keep it thriving.

“A lot of the ways that systems of oppression are set up are designed to tell our people that they can't do anything, that they have to accept the conditions of oppression they live in,” she said. “The more that people band together and fight back, the more empowered they feel.”

The committee’s study also found only a third of Chinese Americans were optimistic that their values and cultures were becoming more widespread and accepted in the United States. The majority of respondents felt that American society has not shifted in either direction when it comes to cultural acceptance.