Transcriber: Saulo Castro Delgado Reviewer: Robert Tucker
Do we have a mental health crisis in the United States?
According to the World Health Organization,
one in eight people live with a mental disorder.
At the same time,
the National Alliance on Mental Illness,
and the Centers for Disease Control,
identified that one in five individuals
lives experiencing mental illnesses
in the United States among its adult population.
Astonishing number: one in five.
It means, one in five individuals having some challenges
to manage their emotional, sociological, and psychological well-being.
Hi, I’m Dr Sugi.
I’m here to identify and propose some solutions,
based on evidence-based research and publicly available data,
and through my doctorate research.
Is there anything we can learn from immigrants' resilience,
coping mechanisms,
as well as their managing their mental well-being.
I use the word multiple times:
"immigrants."
Before I explain that,
do you want to know that, when I was researching this,
I came across some kind of very interesting information?
Listen to me carefully.
Evidence-based research says that first-generation immigrants
have a lower risk of mental illness, compared to their U.S. counterparts.
And you may be wondering why.
I wondered why.
Maybe there are some reasons behind it.
My observation is:
These immigrants, coming from other countries,
going through so many challenges in their lives,
maybe they develop more resilience within themselves?
Or maybe,
they develop some culture-oriented coping mechanisms within themselves.
Or maybe, they have more willpower within themselves.
And the other thing I identified in this research process:
When these first-generation immigrants have lived longer in the United States,
their ability to face these mental health challenges
is reduced.
Now, you may be wondering why.
I wondered why.
They go through some kinds of challenges
in adjusting to the United States.
It’s called "acculturative stress."
Maybe lack of resources, maybe lack of knowledge.
Or, maybe some kinds of challenges,
whereby they develop coping mechanisms.
They are culture-oriented coping mechanisms.
Maybe some challenges to their identities.
Or maybe our American lifestyle, or maybe something else.
I talk about immigrants.
Who is an immigrant?
Immigrants are the people who live permanently
in some other country than their birth country.
I use the word
"first-generation immigrant."
Who are first-generation immigrants?
If you are born in a foreign country, you are first-generation immigrants.
At least one parent belongs to a foreign-born,
they belong to second-generation.
If you are born on United States soil,
you belong to a third or higher category.
And now, I think, when we talk about immigrants,
we cannot forget about Emma Lazarus,
her eternal words on the Statue of Liberty:
"Give me your poor ..." -
here you can see it -
"Give me your poor,
your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free."
Is she referring to these immigrants today?
If you belong to first-generation immigrants,
please raise your hand.
I’m one of you.
I come from a beautiful country called Sri Lanka.
And I’m a licensed psychotherapist in New York and New Jersey.
When COVID hit us unexpectedly,
I was dying to know,
dying to know something, find something, about
overcoming these mental health challenges
of the epidemic in the United States.
I did not stop at it.
I did my doctoral study.
It’s about acculturative stress,
immigrant employment, and leadership.
I interviewed multiple leaders.
They originated from Cuba, the Dominican Republic,
India, South and West Africa.
Something I identify within them,
something very unique,
they had all gone through some kind of a challenging situation,
but they did not allow that to define them.
All immigrants coming to the United States,
holding so many dreams in their hearts and minds,
they want to have a better life for themselves, their families,
their kids ...
Not only that,
they want to taste their success, to not forget about it.
And then, when I explored this information -
and another thing:
we did not have "Plan B,"
I did not have one.
I know there is a saying,
"swim or sink."
Ah-ah, I cannot sink.
I have only: "swim harder for my family."
I want to make myself proud,
as well as my family and my country.
Then I had my hypothesis.
My hypothesis was:
immigrant resilience,
coping mechanisms,
and their ability to overcome these mental health challenges.
I put it into perspective,
and then see if there’s any publicly available data.
You can see here,
the "New American" Fortune 500 companies 2019,
45 percent,
45 percent founded by immigrants or their families.
And then what I did was,
I wanted to go there and identify:
Is there any case study out there?
This is for you.
Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, Indra Noori, Safra A. Catz,
Elon Musk.
There are multiple people.
There's something very unique to everybody.
What is unique to them?
They all left behind something very precious to them,
but they did not give up.
And the other thing is,
when they go through multiple challenging situations,
they did not let it defy them.
Third thing:
they embrace a "never give in" attitude.
And they have a growth mindset.
They moved with the growth-mindset further.
Now, we are talking about multiple things here.
And before we go to the next step,
I want to explain a little bit about acculturation, acculturative stress.
What is "acculturation"?
Acculturation is when we move from one country to another,
we go through an adjustment process.
Through what process!?
What are we going to go through?
Emotional, physical, psychological challenges,
that is, acculturative stress.
When we face acculturative stress -
We're all unique, right?
Look at this audience, we’re all unique.
We develop some coping mechanism.
But what can happen with this developed mechanism?
Some can use it positively; some cannot.
When we are not able to use our coping mechanism's protective factors,
what can happen?
It can go to extreme means:
maybe it is anxiety, depression, somatization, anything, you name it.
Then what happened was, during this process,
when I evaluate all this data about a protective factor,
I identified something very, very unique.
That was, I saw it today,
they use their social organization.
It’s their extended family.
They talk to people.
That helps them to overcome challenges.
And the other thing:
they have some culture-oriented activities based on their choices.
They use those choices.
And the other thing:
these extended families help them to prevail
when they are in challenging situations.
And now, before we go to the next step,
this picture.
This is worth more than a thousand words.
This is my mom,
who’s 80+ years old,
barefooted, teaching her grandson how to do gardening.
She never speaks English.
She passed the citizenship exam,
first computer certificate, first English certificate,
learned how to knit,
and taught her grandson how to knit in English.
What do we call that?
Resilience.
It is a Latin word: it says "to leap back."
And the Oxford English Dictionary says:
"one’s ability to overcome challenges in a difficult situation,"
"to overcome challenges quickly."
What is the psychological aspect, there?
It says, when people go through a negative experience,
it's your bounce-back ability, how you overcome that challenge.
Isn’t that resilience?
Yes, that is resilience.
That helps us.
As I said previously,
when we are going through all these challenges,
it helps us with different ways to overcome all these challenges.
Now, there’s another thing.
I experienced this process -
before I go there, I'm talking a lot,
so let me summarize what we're talking about.
What does it say here?
One in five adults in the U.S.
experiences mental illness, mental health challenges, in each year.
Research says
that first-generation immigrants have a pattern they identified,
a lower risk of facing mental health challenges.
There are some differences between ethnic groups.
I’m not going to go there yet.
And then, if they live longer,
their ability to face these challenges diminishes.
Can we learn something from each other?
Is there any way we can learn something from each other?
Very first thing -
these are proposed solutions -
very first thing:
how about we utilize that collective cultural concept?
I know we cannot meet everybody, every single day,
every year.
How about using some Zoom technology?
Once a month?
Talk to all your grandparents, parents, kids, all together.
Do you know why?
The newly identified data says
one in four individuals stated
that they don’t have anybody to talk to when they need it.
We are human beings,
we need human touch,
we need love,
we need care.
When we are in a situation, experiencing a negative experience,
whom do we need?
We need to talk to somebody.
Can we try something,
having this collective culture within us,
to face this epidemic?
That is one solution.
Before I go to my second and third solutions,
there’s an identified gap here
for qualitative, quantitative, and publicly available data.
I found very little information through this process.
Therefore, we all go to annual physical, right?
We all go, right?
Last year, we did not go, I know.
But when we go there,
can they add one question,
asking about how we manage our mental health?
Can we mask everybody’s identities,
so we can identify some themes and patterns?
I know we all are different,
but can we learn something from each other?
My solution three.
We all have green cards if we were not born here, right?
How much paperwork do we fill?
Hundreds, right?
I don't remember them asking any question about our mental health.
Can we add one question
to know how we managed with our mental health
before we come to the U.S.?
Mask of identity, and know some information about it.
Compare first generation, second generation, third generation.
We are going to have publicly available data.
And the fourth one is:
never forget about the social media,
we all have phones at hand.
How often do we talk about immigrants and their mental health?
Seldom, right?
Is it taboo?
Is it a stigma?
How about we talk about immigrants and their mental health?
Can we?
We have youth here, right?
Let’s start a hashtag.
Find the resilient immigrant in you.
Create awareness among others.
Talk about it.
That way, we can learn something from each other.
Before I go, the last thing:
What we can do today.
That’s the whole thing about it, what we can do today, right?
What are we going to do today?
Did you ever hear about the Resilience Board?
I know you all heard about the Vision Board and Action Board.
Let’s do a Resilience Board, Resilience Factor.
What is inside you?
What is motivating you, encouraging you?
What takes you to the next step?
Identify that.
Around it, you can have all your vision, all your mission.
When you feel down, look at your Resilience Board.
I came from the country, Sri Lanka.
You can believe I did not have electricity when I grew up?
I’m not a broken woman.
I’m a very proud, successful, first-generation immigrant.
Therefore, it is all in your heart,
all in your hand.
We are a nation of immigrants.
Identify the resilient immigrant inside you.
We can find something to overcome these mental health challenges today.
Thank you.
(Applause)