OPINION Page 6 n THE ASIAN REPORTER September 5, 2022 Volume 32 Number 9 September 5, 2022 ISSN: 1094-9453 The Asian Reporter is published on the first Monday each month. Please send all correspondence to: The Asian Reporter 922 N Killingsworth Street, Suite 2D, Portland, OR 97217 Phone: (503) 283-4440, Fax: (503) 283-4445 News Department e-mail: news@asianreporter.com Advertising Department e-mail: ads@asianreporter.com Website: www.asianreporter.com Please send reader feedback, Asian-related press releases, and community interest ideas/stories to the addresses listed above. Please include a contact phone number. Advertising information available upon request. Publisher Jaime Lim Contributing Editors Ronault L.S. Catalani (Polo), Jeff Wenger Correspondents Ian Blazina, Josephine Bridges, Pamela Ellgen, Maileen Hamto, Edward J. Han, A.P. Kryza, Marie Lo, Simeon Mamaril, Julie Stegeman, Toni Tabora-Roberts, Allison Voigts Illustrator Jonathan Hill News Service Associated Press/Newsfinder Copyright 2022. Opinions expressed in this newspaper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of this publication. Member Associated Press/Newsfinder Asian American Journalists Association Better Business Bureau Pacific Northwest Minority Publishers (PNMP) Philippine American Chamber of Commerce of Oregon MY TURN n Dmae Lo Roberts The –Ism Youth Files Correspondence: The Asian Reporter welcomes reader response and participation. 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Back issues of The Asian Reporter may be ordered by mail at the following rates: First copy: $1.50 Additional copies ordered at the same time: $1.00 each Send orders to: Asian Reporter Back Issues, 922 N. Killingsworth St., Portland, OR 97217-2220 The Asian Reporter welcomes reader response and participation. If you have a comment on a story we have printed, or have an Asian-related personal or community focus idea, please contact us. Please include a contact name, address, and phone number on all correspondence. Thank you. he COVID-19 pandemic will forever leave an pandemic. Eleven-year-old Mila Kashiwabara in indelible milestone on young people in the Portland wrote, “I actually go through anxiety U.S. and around the world. Just as previous myself. Sometimes I have a fear of running out of generations experienced trauma from war and oxygen …” A lengthier description in British-influenced economic depression, the last few years have created lasting mental health challenges for youth. English came from Adrija Jana, who is 18 years old and living in Kolkata, Because of this, I’ve India, a country where been focused on the more than half a million topic and started a people have died from project that culminated COVID-19. in a new e-book and “Throughout this podcast. period, I kept feeling From 40 submis- like I would fall into sions, 20 writers were depression,” Jana selected, not only from wrote. “I felt stressed, Oregon and Washing- yes, tense, and ton, but from Indiana, The goal of The –Ism Youth Files is to create more awareness extremely anxious too, Minnesota, Massa- about youth mental health and to break the silence that still exists but not for a single chusetts, and Connecti- in communities of color. (Image by Danica Leung) cut, as well as a young person from Kolkata, India. moment did I feel I wanted to do something drastic. Each writer received an honorarium payment. Later I realised it was because I did not have the During the last year, The –Ism Youth Files, a project time or the mindset for it. I knew that I was bottling of MediaRites, turned into a mentorship program as up a lot in my heart, and I needed to cry. Even if I we worked with writers to polish their work. For the found two minutes to myself, tears would not flow. I podcast, I interviewed essayists about the was emotionally dead working on autopilot. I knew motivations behind their writings and the effects of if something happened to me, I would be taking the pandemic in their lives. The goal of The –Ism down the entire family of ten members. So I Youth Files is to create more awareness about youth persevered. I hardened my core.” Jenell Theobald, a 15-year-old in Beaverton, mental health and to break the silence that still Oregon, started her own nonprofit organization exists in communities of color. One of the writers, Danica Leung, created a called Let’s Peer Up, which is dedicated to graphic novel called Good Kid, which details her supporting people with disabilities. As a teen on the mental health journey. An 18-year-old entering autism spectrum, she also experienced depression. college as a freshman this year, Leung said the Sadly, some teens do not survive. “The second year of the pandemic, of social pandemic took a bad toll on her mental health because of the isolation and loss of social contact, isolation, of being stuck at home, the tick-tock of the which gave her “a sense of helplessness and clock is the only sound at the moment,” Theobald despair.” She sought therapy which she continues to wrote. “Something is a bit off, though. My coaches don’t seem as energetic and enthusiastic today. this day. “I think therapy is about validating someone’s And, there are fewer people than usual. One person fears and concerns, giving them a space to explore is missing. Because this is quite an expensive what maybe otherwise [feels] taboo to talk about, self-paid small-group class, no one ever misses and finding ways that are comfortable and safe for class, so today’s smaller class size is noticeable. But them to be able to vent ...” said Leung. “And I think it’s probably nothing. He probably just went on especially for Chinese Americans, who come from a vacation. But he didn’t show up to the next class collectivist culture in which it’s very taboo either, or the class after that. Then I found out he sometimes to speak out … we’re kind of faced with committed suicide. My heart twisted, and a wave of the model minority myth, where we have to be high sorrow washed over me.” In a poem, 15-year-old Cara Chen in Lake performing in order to belong … Therapy was super Oswego, Oregon, wrote of her unwelcome solitude: helpful to be able to really put a label on what I was T feeling.” Several other Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) youth writers of various ages experienced mental health challenges during the i’m home, i say, to a house too empty for my soul. a house that, if given the chance, would swallow me up — teeth Continued on page 12 Opinions expressed in this newspaper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of this publication.