Title : Passport to shame: From Asian immigrant to American addict
Abstract:
This presentation covers the intersection of addiction, recovery, immigrant and Asian experiences as well as the broader themes of minority mental health and assimilating into American culture as an ethnic minority.
Sam Louie grew up torn between cultures as part of a first-generation Chinese immigrant family living in a predominantly African American neighborhood in the United States. He experienced the duality of existence with the tension of two vastly different worldviews, his identity intertwined with the country he lives in and his ancestral ties. What traditions and cultural beliefs get preserved, what gets discarded, and what gets lost in translation? Beneath it all was the presence of three generations of addiction, trauma, and shame.
In this bold and vulnerable presentation, he documents the challenges of immigrant experiences and how maladaptive coping mechanisms in the form of compulsive behaviors were a means to gain a sense of adequacy due to the cultural tide of shame and ostracism within his own ethnic heritage and the external world.
Louie's journey of resiliency in navigating multiple cultural forces in the face of adversity and racism can give readers a new understanding of hope, perseverance, and the resources necessary to heal.
Audience Take Away Notes:
- Understand the cultural tension facing immigrants from collectivist cultures in an individualistic American society.
- Learn how Asian honor/shame can impact addictions.
- Recognize what role therapy can play as a healing agent in collectivist cultures.
- Develop new resources to help ethnic clients in their healing.
- See how behavioral addictions such as porn/sex can be used to mask internal struggles.
