Daily Archives: May 3, 2022

Walmarts approximately 2.3 million associates live and work in local communities around the world. Strong, vibrant towns and cities that provide convenient access to healthier food, stable jobs and support in times of disasters are essential to building strong local economies. Over the years, Walmart has been intentional about leveraging our strengths, associates and other resources to build resiliency in communities.

Through collaboration and philanthropic funding, were working to strengthen the charitable meals system, provide emergency relief in the face of disasters, and support more than 10,000 communities our stores, clubs and facilities serve.

In FY21, total global cash and in-kind donations from Walmart and the Walmart Foundation was $1.4 billion, including $43 million to support our COVID-19 response.

Walmart has a long history of stepping up in times of disaster to help communities with relief and recovery. Since 2016, Walmart, Sams Club and the Walmart Foundation have provided more than $108 million in cash and in-kind donations to support community preparedness and relief efforts for disasters including COVID-19. Additionally, during the same time period, we have raised $44 million in donations from customers to support hurricane relief. In FY21 alone, $50 million was dedicated to disaster recovery and preparedness.

We aim to strengthen the health of our communities, not only by providing products, services and jobs through our retail business, but also by facilitating associate volunteerism, local donations through stores and customers, and support for diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Each year, our U.S. stores and clubs award local cash grants ranging from $250 to $5,000. These local grants are designed to address the unique needs of communities where we operate. They include a variety of organizations, such as animal shelters, elder services and community cleanup projects. In FY21, our stores and clubs provided $43 million in local grants. Examples include donating truckloads of supplies to hospitals, donating tablets to a senior living facility to allow family communication during quarantine and providing Chromebooks to schools to support distance learning.

Additionally, we recently announced an initiative called Walmart Rise, which is a new way for us to support our neighborhoods. To kick it off, we gave an additional $5,000 to every Walmart store and distribution center nationwide in 2019 about $23 million total. This initiative empowers associates and customers locally to connect with non-profits and support them in a range of ways such as: Walmart store/club/DC grants and in-kind donations; non-profit charitable gift registries on Walmart.com; matching funds for associate volunteerism and giving; fundraising campaigns in our stores and eCommerce; matching grants from Walmart or the Walmart Foundation; and by providing Walmart space such as store entrances for use by non-profits.

Lastly, we know that hunger is a reality for many families around the world. In 2010, we made our first public commitment to fight hunger. Since FY2015, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation have funded nutrition education programs reaching 4 million people, a milestone achieved in 2019. Building on this milestone, in FY2021 alone, the Walmart Foundation provided additional funding to reach over 500,000 people with nutrition education. In FY21, Walmart stores, clubs, and distribution centers in the U.S. donated more than 627 million pounds of food, 66 percent of which was fruits, vegetables, dairy products and meats. This work is done in collaboration with groups like Feeding America and local food banks. In 2020 alone, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation contributed more than $13 million in grants to support Feeding America.

Learn more about Walmart.orgs community programs.

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Vermont Business Magazine On April 29, 2022, Governor Phil Scott released a proclamation recognizing the first week of May as Abenaki Recognition and Heritage Week. The Vermont Department of Mental Health recognizes that celebrating identity through culture is a vital part of mental well-being.

For thousands of years, the Abenaki people have lived on the land that we now occupy. Through their resilience and strength, they have worked through losses, and hardships. Accessing culturally informed mental health services continues to be a challenge today.

The Department of Mental Health would like to highlight the importance of establishing working relationships with the Missisquoi, Nulhegan, Koas, and Elnu Tribes, as well as intertribal organizations such as the Vermont Indigenous Heritage Center, the Vermont Abenaki Artists Association, and the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs.

Active engagement between the department and Abenaki Leadership will facilitate work to help address the mental health needs of these communities. The Department hopes that, through ongoing conversations, intentional services and supports, and inclusion in new projects, the process of repairing damage to Abenaki communities will continue.

More work is needed to create space for all Vermonters, especially those who are most vulnerable. Acknowledging the needs of high-risk groups is an essential part of addressing mental health needs across the state. Explicit recognition of Abenaki identity and culture is a critical aspect of overall wellness.

The department will work to continue recognizing and meeting the needs of our Abenaki neighbors.

Waterbury, Vt. Governor

Go here to see the original:

Statement of recognition and pursuit of reconciliation for Vermont's Abenaki People - Vermont Biz

By consensus, Friday evenings on Cantines Island are a jolly affair. Each week, from 5 to 6 pm, residents of the cohousing community gather for happy hourone of many regular get-togethers designed to strengthen the bonds of this flourishing intentional community which is one part lifestyle, one part old-fashioned neighborhood. Sharing almost 10 quiet acres enveloped by a meander of the Esopus Creek, the communitys 19 privately owned homes, as well as commonly owned outbuildings and green spaces, were designed to strike a balance between privacy and interconnection.

Attending the weekly gathering isnt mandatory, but it is enticing. On a recent mild spring evening, the variety of the communitys residents, and the deep bonds theyve formed over years of building their thriving cooperative neighborhood, are on full display. OG retirees, some of them residents since the association first broke ground on the site in 1997, gather around a table on the propertys common patio. Children take advantage of the warm spring weather, setting up a ping-pong table or playing on the central green space ringed by 12 of the original single-family homes. Other children dart into the communitys six acres of preserved woodlands. A few parents play with the children, while others take a break to socialize with their neighbors.

Its also the site for the multiple committee meetings it takes to run this community harmoniously. Cohousing is not a commune, says Dorothy Lagana, the chairperson of Cantine Islands community living committee. We sharebut not in everything. We are also not a spiritual or eco-village, though we do work as a community to make decisions in line with caring for the future. The modern cohousing movement began in Denmark in the 1960s and eventually spread to the United States where its estimated there are now more than 160 communities. While there are multiple models for this lifestyle, typically, members own their own homes and share ownership of common buildings and resources according to their location and needs. Cantines Island is legally structured as a homeowners association and along with the common house, green, and nature preserve, residents also share a garden, a parking lot, certain large appliances such as lawnmowers and a communal washer-dryer, as well as a beach along the Esopus, and a resident boathouse with shared kayaks and canoes.

One thing it doesnt have is a president or board. Rather, the community is committed to governing through consensus and members participate in committees overseeing everything from architectural changes to site maintenance to, even, parenting in the community. While there are some official requirements to become a new member, it seems the number one unofficial requirement is a combination of patience and compromise. More than anything, we trust each other, explains Peter Poccia, one of the groups founding members. If we voted on something and I win the vote, but my neighbor losses, Id be happy and my neighbor would be unhappy. But wed still have to live together. Its worth the time it takes to find solutions that work for everybody.

Finding Fellow Travelers

Formed a year ago, their exploratory group has been delving into ways cohousing can become a more prevalent reality in the Hudson Valley. Right now, the group meets regularly on Zoom to discuss issues surrounding the movement and to get the word out to others who may be curious about living in an intentional community. They also regularly visit other cohousing communities throughout the Northeast. In the end, its really about the journey, explains Cohen. Its not for the faint of heart. However, through the process of coming together, figuring out what the structures will look like, facing the obstacles and weathering the ups and downs of the process actually forges the community required to see it through. Its almost necessary to the process.

How it Started

Murphy and Poccia often travelled to the Hudson Valley as members of the Clearwater committee and already loved the area. In 1990, on one of their trips upstate, they saw a classified notice about a Saugerties based cohousing community that was forming. The sites 10 acres had been donated to the group with the provision that the creekside area would remain preserved land and could never be sold piecemeal. Poccia and Murphy attended a meeting and went to see the site. I was like, bingo! There it is!, she says. I realized this is what I needed to do for myself and my husband agreed. The couple bought a car and came up every other weekend to attend meetings.

It actually took seven years, she says. In that time, other members came and went, but Murphy and Poccia remained. With an eye toward sustainability, the community eventually decided on building 12 modular homes and a common house, all designed to blend in with the surrounding environment. Working with architect Raym de Ris, each structure was carefully planned to balance the needs of the family with the whole ethos of the shared property. Just around 1,000 square feet, Murphy and Poccias home includes an open-concept living room, dining room and kitchen on the first floor as well as a guest room. The couples large primary bedroom, bathroom, and ample closet space are upstairs. Eventually, the community expanded, buying two adjacent properties, renovating one home and building others for a total of 19.

How Its Going

Eventually Novak left the house and brought her son, now 12, to one of the communitys weekly dinners. As soon as she walked in the door, arms went up asking to hold her baby, offering to give her a break. It was really like the angels started singing, she says. As a new mother, I never felt isolated or alone. Over the years, as a working parent, the benefit of having weekly shared meals has helped Novak balance the modern-day dilemma of having both a family and a career. Learning to work with other parents to compromise when parenting styles clash has deepened her compassion for her neighbors and different ways of thinking in general. Living here has spurred both great personal and professional development, she says.

Novak believes learning to live in the community has been a blessing for her children as well. Not only do her children have the benefits of friends to grow up alongside, she loves watching the cross-generational relationships that evolve between the children and the founding residents. They have older neighbors to learn skills from and to take care of, says Novak. My 10-year-old routinely takes in groceries for an older neighbor and also does random chores for another. They benefit from being around others and learning how to give back to others.

In this busy life, its so nice to have community right outside your door, she adds. Its like an old neighborhood where everyone knows everyone, works and plays together, learns from each other, and cares for each other.

Read more from the original source:

Cantine's Island and the Hudson Valleys CoHousing Movement - Chronogram

Rolanda Mitchell believes that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts are necessary because all students deserve to see someone who looks like them in education spaces and feel like higher education is an option for them.

As a Black woman raised in a low-income, rural North Carolina community, I recognize that part of the reason Im here is because I was able to see and interact with other Black people who pursued a college degree, she said. As a result, earning a college degree felt like a feasible option.

Mitchell is currently an assistant teaching professor in the counselor education program and one of the co-chairs of the Council for Multicultural Initiatives & Diversity (COMID). She joined the NCState faculty in January 2018.

Mitchell does not think it is possible to have strong and effective educational systems if diversity, equity, and inclusion are not prioritized and centered.

The reality of our world includes barriers that prevent people in marginalized groups from having a high-quality K-12 education and seeing educators that look like them, Mitchell said. The barriers arent going to go away by themselves, so its our job to be intentional about centering diversity, equity and inclusion.

Mitchell believes that DEI efforts help to mitigate barriers and give folks the tools, confidence and support to meet their full potential.

As a result, we get equitable distribution of funding, stronger schools, graduates who are better equipped for careers and/or post-secondary education and more effective higher education institutions, she said.

Mitchells research interests include studying access to counseling and mental health services for historically marginalized communities. She saw first-hand how COVID-19 exacerbated the digital divide and created a significant barrier in low-income and rural communities.

Mitchell is also planning a study that surveys how professional school counselors managed the transition to virtual learning. She will collect information about the support they received or were missing during the pandemic and how that impacted their ability to provide counseling services to students and families.

My hope is to bring awareness; I dont think there can ever be too much of that, she said. But more than that, I hope that all of our research inspires change.

Recently, she was also invited to work on a collaborative project with Halifax County Schools, specifically with the school counseling department, for the 2022-23 school year.

As a consultant, my job will be to tap into their existing skills, add additional training and hopefully leave them feeling better equipped to support their schools through a strong comprehensive counseling program, Mitchell said.

Another goal of this collaboration is to use research and data to demonstrate the hard work and progress happening in Halifax County school counseling departments.

Often, schools and students in lower-income districts are portrayed from a deficit model, highlighting whats wrong and suggesting that there is something inherently lacking with students, families and educators, she said. That is absolutely not the casethere is talent and potential everywhere if we take the time to look.

Mitchells role as an educator in the counselor education program also allows her to embed DEI into her work.

Our goal is to graduate counselors who have unconditional positive regard, empathy and hope for the students, clients and families they serve, she said. Additionally, we want them to value and practice advocacy in their community.

In the counselor education program, the faculty works to help students recognize and confront the inherent biases that all humans bring to the table, unpack where that comes from, challenge the beliefs that dont serve them and work to keep biases from interfering in their counseling skills and techniques.

In order to get conversations going, we use elements such as readings, case studies, media and processing questions, Mitchell said. Its also important that we provide a safe space so that all students can have honest discussions without fear of academic retaliation or harm from their peers.

For other students and NCState community members, Mitchell encourages those who are not already familiar with COMID to engage in their upcoming events.

This year, in collaboration with Professor and Senior Advisor for Advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Joy Gaston Gayles, COMID hosted a series of discussions focused on topics such as anti-racism and self-care while doing DEI work, tackling microaggressions, and racial gaslighting.

Mitchell also recommends those who engage in DEI work be intentional about taking care of themselves.

In order to engage fully and effectively, you have to be healthy and whole, mentally, physically, and spiritually, she said. So, if youre reading this, take a moment now and think about something you can do to recharge, then make time for that.

This story was written by Jayla Moody

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Rolanda Mitchell is Using Diversity, Equity and Inclusion To Help Build Strong Educational Systems in K-12 Schools and Higher Education - NC State...

Upon coming back from spring break, Doris Smiths first call was to a family displaced following a fire at their home.

Thankfully, nobody was hurt, the family told Smith, who is family and community support service provider at Hartfords Thirman L. Milner Middle School. The family was stable on food and other essentials. But the childrens school uniforms were lost.

Milner officials were able to replace the uniforms through Milner Market, a newly opened food pantry located within the middle school that provides food assistance and other essential goods to families. Its the latest development in the longstanding relationship between Milner and Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Hartford, which provides afterschool programs and a wide array of wrap-around supports to the school community.

We all come together. Families will tell us what they need, and well take it to them, Smith said.

Milner Market, which had its grand opening on April 6, is one of four pantries of its kind that have opened across Hartford schools since the beginning of the pandemic amid heightened need for goods and services among low-income communities. Parents and caregivers can shop for food supplies, from nonperishables to frozen meats, as well as other essentials, such as cleaning supplies and hygiene products.

I never want to hear a child or family say, I dont have... said Leanardo Watson, principal at Milner. He said hes always looking for ways to supplement whats accounted for in the budget, adding: Money only goes so far.

Leanardo Watson, principal at Hartford's Milner Middle School, holds a box that a family can use to shop for items at Milner Market, a newly opened food pantry located on school grounds. (Seamus McAvoy)

The market is made possible by a $500,000 grant from Cigna Corp. as part of the Bloomfield-based companys global Healthier Kids For Our Future initiative, which aims at reducing food insecurity in high-need areas.

About 1 in 7 children in Connecticut faces food insecurity, according to Connecticut Foodshare, a regional food bank. Communities of color were hit hardest following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted job security and supply chains.

Though some progress has been made at curbing Hartfords food desert status, the census tract surrounding Milner Middle School is one of two within the capital city in which a significant number of residents live more than one mile away from a supermarket, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In the first year of the grant, Milner tapped Catholic Charities to coordinate Cignas Full Cart program, which delivered meal boxes straight to homes.

Milner used the grant award to sponsor mindfulness training among school staff, which will be complete by the end of the year. The school also created a training class for parents and caregivers called Healthy Bodega, which teaches community members how to shop for healthy, nutritious food at their nearby grocery store.

Milner Markets name was intentional, said Sahar A. Hakim, Catholic Charities community school director. Organizers want to give families the impression that its no different from any other grocery store, and avoid the stigmas unfortunately attached to food pantries and similar sites.

Similarly, the shopping process is structured to maximize discretion. Family members pick up their supplies in the back of the school, and only one family is allowed in the market at a time during shopping hours. Its a shame-free zone, but they let the families be in control of their own narratives.

As in the case of the family displaced by the residential fire, the market is already making a difference.

There have been times when I ran out of food or personal hygiene products, and I was so happy that the Milner Market existed, one parent wrote in an email. I want to say thank you for the help and hope that this continues to help more people like me.

Milner Market, a newly opened food pantry at Hartford's Milner Middle School, offers household essentials such as toiletries and cleaning supplies in addition to meat products and nonperishable food. (Seamus McAvoy)

Milner is whats known as a community school a model that uses a lead outside agency to provide much-needed supports without depending on full-time staff employed by the district. The model hinges on four components: family engagement, collaborative leadership and practices, student support, and extended learning opportunities.

Its essentially an extension of the school day, Hakim said: Extended services, extended hours, extended partnerships.

Beyond Catholic Charities, Milner also has partnerships with The Village, a youth mental health organization, and Hartford Knights, a local youth organization.

Were engaging several stakeholders, all at the same time, to coordinate services to remove barriers for students as well as families, said Nuchette Black-Burke, the districts chief outreach, community partnerships and family engagement officer.

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Hartford Public Schools has been using the community school model for about 14 years, according to Black-Burke. Participation has grown from just seven schools with embedded partners to include all 39 within the district, which fall along four different tiers depending on need.

Milner is a tier four school the highest tier as identified by the state Department of Educations accountability index, which indicates the highest need and most services.

Catholic Charities is embedded into the building, with staff on site. The organization runs daily afterschool programs until 6 p.m. each evening, with transportation provided. Students can participate in sports, mentorship opportunities or participate in a wide variety of activities like barber shop lessons and martial arts.

Alexx Dennis, Catholic Charities program coordinator at Milner, is fond of the cooking class on which he serves as a taste-tester.

Yeah, I run the program, but Im also getting to see the kids progress, Dennis said.

How can we come together to provide all the different types of services a student may need? It goes beyond academics. ... Its focused on the whole child, Watson said.

Seamus McAvoy may be reached at smcavoy@courant.com.

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Through community partnerships, Hartford schools meet myriad needs from food to uniforms, child care, martial arts and mindfulness - Hartford Courant

This weekend in New York City, thousands of community college representatives from across the nation gathered with the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), their first in-person convention since the pandemic.

Community college leaders gather to hear Dr. Michael Baston, Dr. Lawrence Rouse, and Dr. Willie Smith on Monday at the New York City Midtown Hilton.On Monday, two Black community college CEOs shared how they purposefully lead their institutions to create opportunity for those with less, and the president of Lone Star Community College, Kingwood (LSC-K), shared how her institution has completely changed its marketing to recruit, enroll, and retain Latinx students.

As community college presidents, we have an awesome task, and Im delighted to have that responsibility, said Dr. Lawrence Rouse, president and CEO of Pitt Community College in Winterville, NC. [The pandemic] was the greatest disruptor, in our lives but also in higher education for community colleges. We had to take a step back and look at how we reinvent what we do.

Since the pandemic, Rouse said that Pitt discovered over 39,000 people in his community who had started a post-secondary credential at an institution but had not completed. Rouse and his colleagues are working to bring those individuals into their fold.

[Those students] have a lot of things going on with them, food insecurity, childcare, sometimes a fear of coming back to a college environment if you werent successful before, said Rouse.

Dr. Lawrence Rouse - President and CEO, Pitt Community College.Pitt converted a tiny house into what Rouse called a mobile enrollment vehicle, which is towed around the community to spread the word about Pitt.

We go to churches, we go everywhere, said Rouse. We also have four mobile classrooms to do class on site in the community and give them a taste of, You can do this.

Rouse also reached an agreement with his local district attorney in an effort to disrupt the cycle of incarceration facing Black and Brown youth. During trials, a Pitt staffer sits in the back of the courtroom. Defendants are given an option to take classes at the college, which will be taken into consideration by the judge.

Dr. Willie Smith, CEO and chancellor of Baton Rouge Community College, joined with Rouse on the panel as they shared their backgrounds. Both grew up in severe poverty are keen to share the support and opportunity they received through education.

Coming from that background provided perspective that I must give back and challenge the status quo, said Smith. I know many of our students come with baggage, and people see that baggage and dont want them. We, as a community college, are a reflection of our communityI want to make sure we support and help people achieve the dream.

Shortly after the pandemic began, Smith said he received an email from one of his students, sharing with him how she had lost her job, had no money or child-care, and was now going hungry. Smith later discovered food-insecure faculty members. Students, faculty, and administrators alike were struggling with no or low-speed internet.

Those kinds of things floored me. We gave away thousands of gift cards, Visa cards, paid for internet access, said Smith. I told my staff, were no longer educatorswere social workers. We have more work to do to make sure food is secure across our colleges. We need to be talking with our policy makers about the challenges of being a student.

Smith is working to uplift the Baton Rouge community by removing programs and courses that result in low-paying careers. He said this decision may not be popular, but its the only one that sits right with his conscious.

Dr. Melissa N. Gonzalez, President, Lone Star College Kingwood.I think everything we do now in this society needs to be intentional, said Smith. It doesnt do me any good if you do a low wage [earning] program, and six or seven years later you come back with no money in your pocket, no house, no American dream.

Smith urged community college leaders to earn the trust of the surrounding community, something Dr. Melissa N. Gonzalez said is crucial to connecting with and recruiting from Latinx populations.

Gonzalez, president of LSC-K, just northeast of Houston, TX, said when she started the role ten months ago, there was hardly any targeted marketing to the schools surrounding Latinx communities.

Latinx students might be intimidated by the process of applying to and attending college, as many might be the first in their families to have access to higher education, Gonzalez said. Many families and students only speak Spanish, and some may face pressures from their family to work instead of going to school.

So, through a process of constantly reviewing tangible, data-driven reports of their progress, Gonzalez has seen the Latinx enrollment of her Kingwood campus grow to 44%, up from 25.2% in fall 2012.

Go into the communities and just be there, listening. Then the next time, say something about the college. Then, the next time, bring them in, said Gonzalez. It takes time. Its so important that they see this is who you are, this is genuine. You really want to know about the community, and you want to help.

Personal outreach, an ability to understand how each community likes to be contacted, having bilingual staff on hand, and engaging with the leaders and influencers of those communities can help institutions reach the Latinx population.

Liann Herder can be reached at lherder@diverseeducation.com.

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Gathering in Person, Community College Leaders Shared Advice for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion - Diverse: Issues in Higher Education

Editors note: The opinions expressed in this piece are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of NextShark.

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month as well as Mental Health Awareness month. It is a unique time to be an Asian American psychologist, as it is the one month in which Asian American mental health issues become highlighted across many platforms. I am often asked, What is the state of Asian American mental health? Truth be told, less than three years ago, it was a topic that was mostly siloed within cultural competency courses in graduate schools, and rarely discussed by the public. People were not accustomed to acknowledging Asian American identity, and even less attention was placed on exploring Asian American mental health.

Suddenly, COVID-19 and the rise of anti-Asian hate started to permeate the everyday lives of Asians across the world. We witnessed and read about them being brutalized and verbally attacked. Especially painful were the videos of Asian elders being assaulted. All these terrifying events during the loneliness of a pandemic-induced lockdown only furthered our sense of isolation. The parts of ourselves that knew anti-Asian racism existed long before the pandemic began were brought to the forefront of our consciousnesses, and our collective mental health suffered greatly in response. For many of us, this collective trauma activated childhood memories of discrimination toward our immigrant parents, as well as forgotten experiences of being othered by our peers. We have buried those experiences so deep in our psyches that we may not have even remembered that we experienced such discrimination. It has been difficult not to waver between hopelessness and rage over these past two years.

Despite these racialized experiences within our families and community, many of us found ourselves as young adults trying to navigate the consequences of the model minority label. As Asian Americans, we are often expected to perform well and excel everything while always being agreeable. We learned how to code-switch with a smile, even in the face of blatant microaggressions. But what if certain aspects of the model minority myth were, in fact, a trauma response? In trauma literature, there are the more commonly known trauma responses such as Fight, Flight and Flee. But the Feign Response, one of the lesser-known ones, is worth exploring. Feigning is a protective response in which we may appease, defer or comply with others to protect ourselves from future attacks. When faced with a potential threat, we might instinctually make ourselves smaller, more docile or even invisible. These people-pleasing behaviors may have helped our parents and earlier Asian immigrants survive systemic injustices that plagued our people for generations. However, what began as an adaptive response for our community in the face of decades of mistreatment might have unwittingly contributed to the Asian stereotypes we work so hard to overcome.

Now, we must challenge the narrative. This process of unlearning can be difficult within a culture that often chooses to suppress pain instead of verbalizing it, but there are steps we can take to move in a direction of progress. We must first acknowledge our emotions and name the injustices we experience. Then, we must start externalizing oppression and hold those who do harm accountable. This accountability may be necessary in our schools, neighborhoods or workplaces. It may call upon us to be courageous and assertive. It may require us to seek community solidarity to persist in the face of injustice. But compliance is no longer an effective strategy for our community developing a voice must become an intentional practice.

Silence has long been another problematic aspect of the model minority myth. It is particularly dangerous because it can fuel shame within communities, which is a direct threat to our mental health. Silence has left many of our racialized experiences unexplored, making it difficult to name the racist structures in our lives. Moreover, many of our parents cautioned us to not rock the boat and to stay silent in the face of mistreatment. As people of color, protesting and fighting back against inequity can prompt dangerous retaliation, which is why family members encourage us to comply in order to protect us. Furthermore, our silence makes it seem as if we are living our best lives. But when we are silent, we are cut off from empathy and compassion from others. This also allows us to repeat harmful identity stories that keep us suffering, both alone and together. And though silence may have been how many of our parents and ancestors endured their hardships and trials, our generation must refuse to be silent it is costing our community far too much.

Moving toward each other and breaking the silence can be uncomfortable in a community that glorifies achievement and self-reliance, but it is a worthy pursuit for the sake of our mental health. For some, breaking the silence may involve putting words to emotions and sharing them with people we deem safe. For others, it might include seeking therapy, medication or both to support a life well-lived. Our willingness to show our vulnerability, our struggles in the face of challenge and our heartache in the midst of grief all offer a glimpse into our humanity that has been erased by the model minority myth.

So, my invitation to our community is this: Will you help us break the silence surrounding mental health? If not you, then who? If not now, then when?

Author Bio: Dr. Jenny Wang is a Taiwanese American clinical psychologist and national speaker on Asian American mental health and racial trauma in Asian American, BIPOC and immigrant communities. She is the founder of the @asiansformentalhealth Instagram community, in which she discusses the unique experiences of Asian diaspora and immigrant communities. Her forthcoming book, Permission to Come Home: Reclaiming Mental Health as Asian Americans will be out May 2022 from Balance Publishing.

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Mental health in Asian American communities: Why we must break the silence together - Yahoo News