“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”: An Asian American perspective on mentoring in neuropsychology

ABSTRACT

Objective

The Asian Neuropsychological Association (ANA) is a recently established cultural identity-based organization with the mission to ensure accessibility and provision of culturally sensitive neuropsychological services for individuals of Asian descent. One of ANA’s programmatic goals has been to foster a pipeline of neuropsychologists through mentoring and networking. In this paper, we aim to understand the historical context as well as unique considerations that are relevant for mentoring in the Asian American community.

Methods

A search of the existing literature in psychology and allied fields such as counseling and sociology was conducted to identify and formulate suggestions for mentoring culturally diverse communities, with a specific focus on Asian Americans. Firsthand narrative descriptions of effective examples of mentoring experiences in the context of shared values are discussed.

Findings and Implications

This paper reviews the historical context and establishes an initial contextual foundation for increasing knowledge about best practices that can be used to establish effective mentoring relationships for Asian Americans. Six key considerations were identified: model minority myth, acculturation and enculturation, ethno-racial status and gender, the context of communication, quantity and quality of mentorship, and unique values specific to the Asian American community. Our findings identify the value of cultural identity-based organizations in creating communities that can support the professional development of future neuropsychologists at various career stages. Overall, findings have implications for maintaining the relevance of the field of neuropsychology in adequately serving an increasingly culturally diverse national and international population.

KEYWORDS:

• Mentoring
• culture
• neuropsychology
• Asians
• Asian Americans
• training
• cultural sensitivity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. A Caveat in Terminology in Categorizing Asian Americans: Although Filipino sailors were the first Asians to come to North America in the late 1500s, the first major wave of Asian immigrants came in the 1850s during the California Gold Rush (Mahajan, 2015). Various terms have been used to describe the more than 20 million Asians who currently live in the US and trace their roots to at least 19 countries in East and Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent, including China, India, Philippines, Vietnam, Korea, Pakistan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Japan (Budiman & Ruiz, 2021). The terminology to describe this group has included Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI), Asian American, Pacific Islander and Desi American (APIDA; Bluth, 2021), and most recently Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (AANHPI) to denote the inclusion of native Hawaiians (The White House Briefing Room, 2021). The Asian Neuropsychological Association (ANA) maintains an inclusive stance for those with origins from the above communities from Eastern and Southern parts of Asia, as well as those from Western and Central Asian countries (e.g., Armenia, Iran, Oman, Syria, and Turkmenistan).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.