Awakening to Racial Trauma Faced by Asian Americans

ABSTRACT

Dr. Kris Yi’s article elucidates Asian Americans’ experiences of racial trauma. Dr. Yi’s insights are both critical and compelling as she brings the racial pain of Asian Americans to the foreground of psychoanalytic inquiry. She illustrates how the model minority stereotype and gendered racism shape the disillusionment that many Asian Americans face, while calling for a more active engagement of psychoanalysis with Asian American experiences. This commentary is an effort to expand on several areas related to racial trauma faced by Asian Americans: The effects of racism on mental health; Racism in past and present U.S. contexts; Internalization of and ambivalence concerning white norms; and Gendered racism and sexual violence. My intention is to join Dr. Yi in bringing greater visibility to racial trauma among Asian American communities, and to urge practitioners, scholars, and educators to explore Asian Americans’ racial positioning with more depth, complexity, and honesty.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pratyusha Tummala-Narra

PratyushaTummala-Narra, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and the Director of Community-Based Education at the Albert and Jessie Danielsen Institute and Research Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Boston University. Her research and scholarship focus on immigration, trauma, race, and culturally-informed psychoanalytic psychotherapy. She is also in Independent Practice, and works primarily with survivors of trauma from diverse sociocultural backgrounds. Dr. Tummala-Narra is the author of Psychoanalytic Theory and Cultural Competence in Psychotherapy (2016) and the editor of Trauma and Racial Minority Immigrants: Turmoil, Uncertainty, and Resistance (2021), both published by the American Psychological Association Books.