Our Mission
To bridge the cultural- generational gap surrounding mental health in the Asian community and help Asian-Americans start conversations about mental health with their immigrant parents.
Did You Eat Yet is an Asian-led non-profit organization that was born of our own desire to talk about mental health with our Asian immigrant parents. Especially since the Covid-19 pandemic and rise in anti-Asian hate, mental health in the Asian American community has worsened. Suicide is the leading cause of death for Asian people between the ages of 18 and 26.
Did You Eat Yet seeks to destigmatize and open conversations about mental health within our own communities and families.
If you were raised in an Asian culture, we don’t need to tell you that mental health isn’t a conversation that is encouraged in Asian and Asian-American families. Many of us, when we tried to share things about our mental health with our parents, were met with stories of their own suffering, and how much harder their lives were. We were told to persevere and push through (kiên trì/我慢/etc). We lost hope of ever having our parents understand that we suffered, too.
Did You Eat Yet was created, by Asian Americans who’ve been there, to help you change this dynamic by providing steps and resources that you can use to start these conversations in healthy, non-confrontational ways.
Our Founder, Kelvin Nguyen, has always been open about his own mental health struggles. This made other people in his community feel comfortable opening up to him about their mental health. The more people he talked to, the more he realized how many similarities there were between stories. His Asian American friends and family members told him, over and over again, that they wished they could talk to their parents about their mental health.
But because of generations of stigma and shame, the mere thought of bringing these topics up within their own families was daunting.
Kelvin sought out to break down this generational-cultural barrier, one step at a time. Did You Eat Yet provides culturally-aligned resources for both Asian-Americans and Asian immigrant parents about mental health. All of our resources for parents are translated into common Asian languages and use words that make the topic of mental health more approachable for our parents’ generation.
Our hope is that these resources help Asian Americans and their parents meet somewhere in the middle — with Asian immigrant parents becoming more open to the idea of talking about mental suffering without being ashamed, and with Asian Americans understanding that their parents show them love and support in the ways they know how to.
Our parents always ask us, “Did you eat yet?” This is a way that they show us love. Kelvin named his organization Did You Eat Yet in honor of this love.
What we believe
Asian Culture is beautiful
Trying to destigmatize mental health within Asian culture does not mean that we want to change our cultures. We are deeply proud to be Asian, and believe that Asian culture is beautiful. We want to get rid of the idea altogether that we are trying to “be more Western” by talking about mental health. We believe mental health is for everyone, including Asians and Asian-Americans.
In the same vein, we don’t believe that the only way to talk about mental health, especially with immigrant parents, is by using terminology created by white Westerners. Asian people do understand the concept of mental, emotional, and spiritual wellness, but it might not be in the ways that Western psychology understands it. And that’s okay.
We can talk about mental health Through Our culture
The goal is prevention and treatment
The reason why stigma is so dangerous is that it prevents people with highly treatable mental illnesses from getting the treatment they need. We want to open conversations about mental health for family support, but also to encourage more Asian Americans to get treatment if they need it.
We recognize and honor how much our parents suffered and sacrificed to give us a better life. We deeply appreciate them for this. At the same time, we also honor ourselves enough to recognize and heal our own suffering. We understand that suffering is not a competition.
We honor our parents’ sacrifices
To me, being Asian implies community. Being a part of the Asian American community, there’s a sense of comfort that I wouldn’t otherwise have.
And it’s maybe because of this that this topic of mental health hits so hard. Because for all the comfort and pride that I feel being a part of the Asian American community, there’s also a heavy burden in knowing that most of us have never given ourselves permission to prioritize our mental wellbeing.
So many of us have built up such a habit of sacrificing our present for a better future that we fail to care for our mental well-being until we realize there’s not much future left.
The biggest change I’d like to see within the Asian American is the prioritization of mental health. Our relationship with mental health can be better, and it’s okay to demand better.