APSI-sponsored panel and film screening spotlight calls for action among a community reckoning with mental health challenges

On November 18, 2025, Duke's Asian/Pacific Studies Institute and Asian American & Diaspora Studies Program collaborated with UCA WAVES (Wellness, Advocacy, Voices, Education, Support) for a special screening of a powerful new documentary profiling multiple members of the Asian American community who stepped up to share their own battles with mental illness and the profound impact these struggles have had on our society.

Silent War: Asian American Reckonings with Mental Health reveals the very human cost of staying silent amid struggles with mental well-being—and the power of breaking that silence. At once personal and political, the film charts a collective journey from shame to resilience, offering hope for a more inclusive and compassionate mental health future.

While reflecting profoundly personal stories, the film offers sobering statistics about the status of mental health in the Asian American community at large. The figures reflected in the documentary are echoed by recent reports from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of Minority Health, which show that:

• Suicide was the leading cause of death for Asians ages 15 to 24, in 2022.
• In 2024, Asian American adults underwent only 55% the rate of mental health treatments as adults of the total population.
• In 2024, Asian adults reported having any mental illness in the past year 27% less frequently than the total population.

Through a compelling blend of personal narratives, interviews, and expert commentary, the film sheds light on several of the interconnected challenges faced by members of the Asian American community and the ways in which individuals continually navigate questions of identity, belonging, and loyalty within their families and society. Following the screening, an expert panel discussed the ramifications of the unmet need for culturally-informed mental health care as well as their own experiences working to support the Asian American and Asian diaspora communities in North Carolina. 

Moderated by Eileen Chow, the panelists (Dr. Yan Li, Dr. Lily Chen, Ling Jin, and Pooja Mehta), shared very candid and honest glimpses into their own experiences as clinicians and as members of the Asian American community in the Triangle working to combat the pervasive stigma, cultural expectations, social isolation, and low mental health literacy that frequently cause Asian American youth as well as adults to “suffer silently.”

Ling Jin, an alumna of APSI who is currently the NC Director of Program for UCA WAVES and a clinical mental health counseling student at UNC-Chapel Hill, shared her perspective that, “Working with international students at Duke, really prompted me to think more about mental health and needs in the communities and how there's such a lack of therapists who look like us, who know about the experiences of immigrants. So that really prompted me going into the mental health field.”

The panelists reflected how, despite reporting disproportionately high rates of mental distress, Asian Americans are among the least likely groups to seek professional assistance. Partly, this is attributed to cultural, linguistic, and generational barriers as well as social challenges such as the “model minority” myth, systemic racial profiling and pervasive discrimination, and the broad lack of clinicians who can provide high-quality mental health care for this particular community.

Pooja Mehta, the AAPI Community Outreach Lead for the North Carolina State Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Use Services, spoke eloquently about the nuanced intersection of complex, multifaceted identity on mental well-being, particularly for Asian Americans. She stated: “I think one of the things that we really don't talk about when we're talking about the mental health of our communities is the impact of being a hyphenated American. There's a lot of expectation that's put on us by other members of our community within the Asian spaces, by the external, broader American community, and then back from our families and our relationships in our home country, trying to tell us what our identity should be. 

... I really want to see conversations that allow the communities that we have here to identify for themselves, to define for themselves: what does this hyphenated identity mean for you. Because whether you came here as an adult from another country, whether you came here from a child of another country, whether you were born to immigrants here, whether you were born to second generation identities here, the way you carry your culture, and the values and the practices that come with that, and integrate it into this broader ecosystem that we are all a part of, it is going to look different from the people around you.” 

Mehta concluded, “I'm really proud of the people on this panel for the work that we're doing to move towards defining identity in a way that looks different for every single person, but it's rooted in an authenticity that feels genuine to yourself rather than adhering to these parameters of what other people want to define it for you.”

To catch up on the full conversation, watch a recording of the panel discussion: