The New York Times on Korean Americans and Suicide

By Deputy Editor Thea Lim

Reader Carleandria sent us this strange New York Times article about heightened suicide rates in Korean American New York communities:

The number of suicides reported to the local Korean Consulate General has more than doubled this year, to 15 from 6 last year, and there were 5 in 2007. All of the dead were Korean citizens, said the consulate, which does not keep statistics on Korean-Americans.

The consul general, Kyungkeun Kim, said he believed that the actual total of suicides by Korean citizens might be more than twice as high. The Korea Times, a Korean-language newspaper published in the United States, reported in September that at least 36 Koreans and Korean-Americans in the New York region had taken their lives this year.

Money troubles have been the leading force behind the sharp rise, say Korean civic leaders and officials, who are alarmed by the trend.

While I assume these figures are accurate, the NYT offers no yardstick by which to interpret these numbers. For example, how does the Korean New Yorker suicide rate compare to the overall suicide rate in the US or simply in New York state? Why highlight suicide within the Korean New York community, as opposed to highlighting suicide rates in general? And how does this suicide rate compare to Korean communities in the rest of the US?

What this comes down to for me is, why are the suicides of the dead being pegged as an ethnic/cultural thing?

Many Koreans place an extraordinary emphasis on academic and professional achievement, said Sung Min Yoon, the assistant project director at the Diana at Disgrasian, reporting on a study that said Asian American women were most likely to commit suicide.  Diana alluded to how the shame and silence around mental health in Asian communities can be truly crazy-making.  Commenters added on to this, discussing how racialisation, cultural clashes and gender expectations put an immense strain on American women of colour’s mental health.  I wholeheartedly agree that in many Asian cultures mental health is taboo, making it difficult within these communities for people to articulate their pain and get the support they need.

Yet discussions about the mental health of Asians within Western culture can’t leave Asian culture holding the bag, especially if we are talking about Asians in America.  It is much too convenient for our racist culture to act as if Western culture has no impact on the mental health of the people who live within it.  Besides, when was the last time you saw an article that read, “New York man kills himself, must be because he was white”?  No one’s actions are motivated solely by their race – but time and again people of colour’s actions are reported as totally race-based.

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