Psychological Stressors / Mental Health
The health status of the Vietnamese refugee is characterized by severe trauma, given the horrors that many Vietnamese people witnessed in their country. As a result of seeing and enduring so much violence and destruction, many Vietnamese refugees experience Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression, extreme loneliness, etc. Nearly everyone deals with a considerable sense of loss and guilt for leaving parts of their families behind, for having survived, and other reasons. Like most refugees, Vietnamese refugees, Amerasians in particular, also struggle to find a sense of identity and belonging in their new environment. The Vietnam war, like any war, has scarred many Vietnamese people in various ways. Some witnessed the death of family members, while others were victims of torment and abuse themselves.
In considering the mental health status of the Vietnamese refugees, special attention needs to be paid to the effects that the Communist Party's actions had on the mindset of the Vietnamese people as a whole. Vietnamese culture is founded on the idea of family closeness and community, and the Vietnamese Communist Party's attempts to destroy that foundation caused massive damage to the psyche of the culture, as well as that of the individual people. People were forced to deny members of their own family, and were prevented from interacting with their family members as they had before. Families in Vietnam were destroyed by the Communist forces by means of killing individuals and through "re-educating" the entire population.
For many, escaping from their communist homeland was nothing short of a miracle. In interviews conducted with Tom Doan and Quy Aversa, both spoke about their experiences while escaping the country. Both Tom and Quy saw many of their people die, and many of their women raped upon arrival at the shores of Thailand and Japan.
In Vietnamese culture, mental problems are feared and often denied because they carry with them an intense amount of shame. It is thought that mental illness is caused by evil spirits in retaliation for committing many misdeeds. Therefore, a family will hide a person with a mental health problem until they can no longer care for that person. In Vietnam it is not uncommon for such patients to be abandoned by their families. Because of the negative stigma, the majority of refugees will ignore referrals to mental health practitioners, especially the elderly (http://www.hslib.washington.edu/clinical/ethnomed/vietnamesecp). In speaking with Tom Doan on this matter, he commented that because the Vietnamese do not usually speak openly about emotions or their problems, they will only seek psychological help if it is absolutely necessary. Rather, to handle any emotional or mental stresses they might be experiencing, the Vietnamese tend to keep their suffering to themselves (Rutledge, 105).
Cultural Diversity
