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In late July, Long Phan, a graduate student from the California Institute of Technology, was found dead in his home with the cause believed to be suicide. Before Phan’s death, Caltech experienced two earlier cases of confirmed suicide of students within the past three months; both of whom were young Asian-American males. Despite the stereotype of Asian Americans as super-achievers in academia, there is a disturbing trend that is not often discussed: the extremely high suicide rates in the Asian American community. New America Media’s Andrew Lam reported in a recent article about Asian Americans and suicide of his own experiences in the community, which are linked to cultural and family pressure on students to excel in academia. The latest issue of Time covers the results of a new survey by psychologists at the University of California, Davis, that seeks to understand the factors leading to suicide among Asian Americans. What they found is that family conflict, more so than depression or poverty, leads to suicide among Asians.

GUEST: Andrew Lam, writer for New America Media.

Read Andrew Lam’s article at http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=
c2b8f3a43bbe3e0445f23274028d24a7