SASKATOON -- Asian-Canadians are reeling after a gunman killed several women of Asian descent in Georgia and mental health experts are urging those struggling in the aftermath to seek help whenever possible.
“One thing that we do know is that people can experience vicarious trauma,” said associate professor Jooyoung Lee, who teaches sociology at the Munk School of Global Affairs in Toronto.
In a phone interview with CTVNews.ca, he said people can feel and share negative emotions connected to a traumatizing event if they’re “exposed to stories and videos about violence against people who look like them, who share a similar racial, ethnic group, or who are part of the same gender.”
“And that can have detrimental effects on a person’s mental health. And that’s a very real thing and it’s becoming even more of an issue, when so much of our news is fast and easy to consume.”
On Tuesday, a white man allegedly shot and killed eight people, most of whom were women of Asian descent, at spas in the Atlanta area. Police are investigating whether the slayings were hate crimes amid concerns over a wave of racist attacks on Asians across North America.
The murders were condemned in a joint statement by several advocacy groups in Canada who felt “outraged and deeply heartbroken by the murder of eight individuals in Atlanta.” They included the anti-hate groups such as Project 1907 and Elimin8hate, as well the Chinese Canadian National Council in Toronto and Butterfly Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Network.
Lee said the rampage shooting in Georgia can remind many people of “different moments when you felt powerless.” For some, this could mean a time when someone didn’t feel capable of pushing back against a racist, and for others, it could be when they didn’t have anyone close by sticking up for them.
Lee, who grew up 30 minutes away from the location of the attacks, said he was struggling mentally himself, sharing he’s had trouble sleeping since news of the deadly shootings broke.
“It makes me reflect on my own family who’s still in the U.S. who, whenever I touch base with them, tell me ‘to be careful’ because people are blaming Asians for the pandemic.”
Experts say none of the recent racist attacks in the U.S. or in Canada are happening in a vacuum. Since 2020, the reported number of anti-Asian attacks and racist attacks have spiked across the country, including in Montreal, Vancouver and Ottawa.
“I think women are absolutely being more targeted, especially street-involved racism,” said professor Jin-Sun Yoon, who teaches about mental health and racialized children at the School of Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria.
In a phone interview with CTVNews.ca, she said she was a victim of racist verbal attacks herself and that racists also single out older East Asian people.
Yoon said many are feeling despair that racially-motivated attacks are still happening, with East Asian youth likely feeling emotions they don’t fully know how to process.
“I think a big part of it is they don’t have the coping strategies that you develop through life and experience,” she said, adding that seeing attacks on social media can exacerbate underlying mental health conditions like anxiety and depression.
'YOU'RE NOT GOING THROUGH IT ALONE'
“It’s incredibly disheartening,” said counselling psychology assistant professor Fred Chou, whose research interests include Chinese-Canadian mental health and community psychology at the University of Victoria.
In a phone interview with CTVNews.ca, he suggested that seeing racially-motivated attacks online can elicit aspects traumatic stress responses in people and that this type of of vicarious trauma can easily be felt by communities as a whole.
“We are impacted because we identify this as our community, we are part of the Asian diaspora in North America and inherently I think there’s this sense of connection,” he said, calling the moment extremely challenging and frustrating for many. He urged people who are struggling to seek professional mental health support, if needed.
Chou said people must know “you’re not going through it alone” and that those who can have a “responsibility and the opportunity to share that [sentiment] with one another.”
The Victoria registered psychologist said this latest attack will likely spur many Asians and non-Asians to even more loudly demand more urgent action and meaningful change from leaders.
But Lee in Toronto said, “I think it’s very hard at this time because of the pandemic. So the groups that typically could meet face-to-face don’t have that option or there are many more hurdles in front of them.”
“I have colleagues and friends in the city of Toronto -- a very diverse, multicultural city -- who say that during this pandemic they’ve been afraid to leave their home because of people yelling at them and telling them to go back to where they came from,” he said.
Lee said part of what’s helping him now is seeing denunciation of anti-Asian racism from other people, friends, colleagues and even celebrities from other racialized communities.
“Hearing people from other marginalized groups step up is such a big thing in this moment,” Lee said, urging more allies to vocally and publicly show their support.
Yoon echoed that message, saying non-Asian bystanders far too often stand idly by as racist attacks are happening. “We’re in a time when we have to care so much about each other. And this again is through the deep sense of wanting to be anti-racist ourselves.”
Chou, who also teaches about intergenerational trauma, warned people with “collective amnesia” who may think this current wave of xenophobia and racism is not a part of the histories of Canada or the United States.
“I think what [the latest slayings] are probably doing right now is invoking and kind of shaking us up to recognize and see that again for what it is,” he said. “It roots us in kind of recognizing our histories.”
Lee called for more bystander training and public-service announcements in cities because “simply intervening when you see someone harassing a vulnerable person can be so important because it usually makes the person back off and makes the person being targeted feel less alone.”
