Clinical Psychology PhD student Seattle Pacific University Canyon Country, California
Asian Americans (AA) have been historically excluded by transnational anti-Asian racism and systematic campaigns, perceiving AA as “perpetual foreigners” since the mid-nineteenth century. More recently, the pandemic generated by Sars-CoV-2 (COVID-19) has caused an increase in anti-Asian racism and discrimination, xenophobia, and hate crimes. The present study uses non-experimental quantitative methods to critically analyze AA mental health symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the moderating role of ethnic and national identity. We hypothesized that overall and everyday discrimination would be associated with worsened mental health. Additionally, we predicted that this relationship would be buffered by Multigroup Ethnic Identity (MEIM) and Asian American values (AAV), but exacerbated by national identity, measured by the Mainstream Comfort subscale for ethnic experiences (SEE-M).Of the 59 AA participants (M age = 22.81, SD = 4.13) recruited across North America;39 identified as cisgender female, 18 as cisgender male,and 2as gender nonconforming. Pearson correlations with normality corrections revealed that discrimination had a significant, positive relationship with interpersonal shame, r(59) = .35, p = .007, and with depression/anxiety/stress, r(59) = 0.28, p = .031. Results from a moderated multiple regression revealed thatwhile MEIM significantly buffered the effect of overall discrimination on interpersonal shame, both SEE-M and AAV had a cataclysmic effect (p = .016, .041, .008, respectively). Additionally, the effect of discrimination on perceived stress was exacerbated when people had higher AAV (p = .041) and SEE-M (p = .057). Our findings also suggested that an increased sense of belonging in American culture correlated with heightened race-based depression, anxiety, and stress among AAs (p = .048). Our results are consistent with previous literature, displaying the detrimental effects of perceived discrimination on mental health symptoms and the protective features of ethnic identity. The current study raises several predicaments regarding specific AA values and national identity—both of which augmented our sample’s race-related distraught. Future research should consider the gap between MEIM and AAVs, and further assess potential apprehensions about what it means for AAs to identify as "American.”
