In the days following the fatal shooting that killed UNC-Chapel Hill professor Zijie Yan in 2023, undergraduate student Mairui "Merry" Li recalled feeling frustrated with the lack of support and outreach to the Chinese academic community.
"I was very concerned about how people around us were going to treat our community, how they were going to see Chinese people differently," she said, noting that she'd seen racist reactions to the shooting on social media. "And I was concerned that this is going to happen again … We just kept thinking to ourselves, what made (the shooter) do what he did? What cultural aspect of it prevented him from getting himself treated?"
The alleged shooter is Tailei Qi, one of Yan's graduate students. In November 2023, mental health evaluations found that Qi was unfit to stand trial and that he likely had schizophrenia.
Li, a senior studying computer science, tried seeking support from a Chinese student organization on campus, but said she did not succeed in finding much help there either. So she posted on WeChat that she wanted to start an effort to provide mental health resources to minority students, and friends reached out saying they wanted to help.
"Chinese folks have a culture of keeping things quiet," Li said. "Everyone was trying to keep it under the hood, like just let it pass. We wanted to do something different."
Li and her friends then formed MAPS, which stands for the Minority Assembly of Psychological Support. The group tries to address the gap in mental health resources for Chinese and minority students by organizing events that help students decompress together, like picnics with pets and art therapy gatherings. They also meet with licensed therapists, provide peer mental health support and do research to understand how to address the stigma that prevents minority students from seeking mental health resources.
"It's always been my dream to do something that's community-based, actually helping the people around me," Li said.
A growing need for culturally competent care
Chinese students make up the largest portion of UNC's international student population, The Daily Tar Heel reported earlier this year. However, UNC's mental health provider CAPS, Counseling and Psychological Services, does not currently have any full-time Mandarin-speaking staff. According to a statement from UNC, CAPS providers have access to language translation services and partner with Mantra Health, a telehealth therapy provider that has therapists who offer services in multiple languages.
CAPS had employed a Mandarin speaker at the time of the 2023 shooting, but that social worker is no longer working at the university.
Several members of MAPS expressed wanting CAPS to hire more culturally competent Mandarin-speaking staff. Jinrui "Viola" Liu, a senior double majoring in psychology and media and journalism, said when she approached CAPS for their services, she found it challenging to work with the therapist she was paired with.
"I feel like, oh my gosh, that will be a huge task for me, explaining all those feelings in English and try to make them understand what I experienced," said Liu, who is MAPS's publicity chair. "My therapist just cannot understand, like there were a lot of cultural gaps."
Liu said she was eventually referred to therapists outside of the university, but found navigating the referral system difficult. She said she would call multiple providers only to find they were not taking any clients.
"That was a really huge and long process," she said. "I think a lot of people would just, you know, give up."
Yue "Cathy" Song, another UNC senior who co-founded MAPS, said in lieu of having licensed therapists who can speak the language and have some cultural understanding, the group tries to provide peer support for folks who need someone to talk to.
"At least you have like a safe space for you to express any obstacles you experience, like real life experiences you can express in Chinese with your peers," Song said.
When asked if CAPS plans to hire a Mandarin-speaking therapist, a UNC spokesperson said in an emailed statement, "CAPS’ goal is to have a representative population of Carolina students utilizing services. CAPS staff look at demographics such as sex and gender, race and ethnicity, international student affiliation, graduate and undergraduate affiliation, etc. with the goal of identifying any groups that are not being served and finding better ways to reach those groups. "
Resources for the Triangle's expanding Chinese community
North Carolina generally has a lack of mental health services that are culturally relevant for Chinese communities, said Lily Chen, the Cary-based founder and executive director of UCA WAVES, a youth mental health group that serves Chinese Americans.
"There isn't any language support in the county and state, so we have to create our own," Chen said.
Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are less likely to seek out mental health services, compared to any racial group in the U.S., according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. But Chen noted that when folks, such as the students who run MAPS, do look for help, they tend to experience difficulty in finding suitable providers, especially since Asians are the least represented among licensed mental health professionals in the U.S. She also said Chinese adults often approach her for mental health resources for their children – suicide, she noted, is the leading cause of death for young Asian Americans.
Chen said it will take years to build a workforce of trained Asian therapists and the infrastructure to provide adequate mental health support for Asian diaspora communities. But in the meantime, UCA WAVES offers monthly mental health first aid trainings, which teach participants skills on how to identify and respond to signs of mental health illness and substance disorder. Chen said the trainings her group facilitates are always full and have long waitlists.
"This is not replacing professional help, but this is something I felt would give some educational tools," Chen said.
She also expressed wanting to see training for non-Asian therapists to understand issues that are specific to Asian Americans, such as intergenerational trauma and the model minority myth.
"Folks don't want to have to explain themselves to a therapist who don't understand, especially if they're already stressed," Chen said.
The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services recently launched Tarang, a pilot program to help address mental health and substance abuse issues in the Asian American Pacific Islander community. The program is holding a virtual event on Dec. 6 for those interested in providing mental health support in their own communities.
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We'd love to hear from members of the Asian American Pacific Islander community in the Triangle about mental health issues that you think need to be amplified. Please reach out to our reporter Eli Chen at elichen@wunc.org.
