
by Almira Astudillo Gilles
A Pew study found that Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial group in the U.S., forecasted to be the largest immigrant group by 2065. In a 2024 article published in the Journal of Immigration and Minority Health, the authors tackled the challenges of mental health care for Filipino Americans and Korean Americans in the Midwest. Their research shows that the stigma associated with mental health services is a major barrier to seeking help. In addition, there are other factors that complicate the nature of that stigma, especially for Filipino Americans.
Saving face, a preoccupation with self-image, and family attitudes were strong determinants of stigma. For Filipino Americans, other factors were in play. Racial discrimination and colonial mentality were found to significantly affect stigma. Because the Philippines was a colony of the U.S., Filipinos were more acculturated into American society and were more likely to be sensitive to racial minority status.
Midwestern Asian Americans report the highest incidence of racial microaggressions among Asian Asian Americans in the U.S. However, this study bears a more nuanced and complex picture of mental health and recommends a more targeted approach. It suggests going beyond traditionally universal factors of individual or family and integrating the context of culture and race.
What would such an approach look like for Filipino Americans? We know ourselves best, don’t we? We know our demographics, our values, our priorities. We know that a go-between is more palatable than direct confrontation, and that the intrusive questions of “titas” about personal issues are borne out of deep concern and love. We know to forgive our elders more readily for their strong opinions. We know that as immigrants and later generations of Filipinos, our homeland is not just an abstraction but a real place where our roots are entrenched deep in this world. We know that if we ever get lonely in a new place, all we have to do is visit a hospital or church and welcoming smiles will greet us.
We can be here for each other
But because there is a very real mental health crisis among immigrants now, our community has to do more. We need formal structures and processes in place. We need a system that works. This reminds me of an incident relayed to me by a senior at the Rizal Center. He had a minor accident, but had nobody to call so he walked home, blood seeping from his injured body. There should have been a phone tree he could call, at least to give him a ride home or drive him to a clinic.
I was recently on a pilgrimage following the life of Mother Frances Cabrini, the first American saint and patron saint of immigrants. She traveled from Italy to the U.S. in 1889 to help Italian immigrants, who were then living in deplorable conditions. It would be great if Filipinos had such a saint working among us, like Mother Cabrini did for Italian immigrants. But, on the other hand, we need not look further than the Filipino nurse administering care or the Filipino sitting next to us at Sunday Mass. We are 4.1 million strong in the U.S. , with Chicago having the seventh-largest population in the country. We can be here for each other.

Almira Astudillo Gilles describes her heart’s work as conservation in two areas: indigenous cultural heritage and natural resources. Her cultural heritage work includes a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant for Art and Anthropology Project: Portrait of the Object as Filipino, an international artist exchange. She was the founder of 10,000 Kwentos (“Stories”) at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, a model of direct community engagement with the museum’s Philippine ethnographic collection.
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