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A Strength in Blood Substance abuse trend among API youth defies the ‘model minority’ myth.
David Plunkett has plans. He is going to Pasadena City College this fall with aspirations to transfer to a 4-year college in a couple years to study psychology or business. Eventually, he wants to obtain a doctor’s degree, but the idea of running an art gallery/coffee shop sounds equally intriguing. For David, life seems so full of possibilities and passion. Why not? He is a healthy, intelligent teenager with a whole life ahead of him. A few years ago, however, David’s life was a struggle. Like thousands of Asian American and Pacific Islander teens in Los Angeles County, he has been battling against substance abuse, which led him to a 17-month probation and a 20-month stay at a residential rehabilitation facility. As the California state legislature finalizes the 2007-2008 budgets, County health officials and organizations are anxiously waiting to see if the $120 million budget for Proposition 36, also known as the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act, passes the Senate floor. Prop. 36, which was originally passed by 61 percent of California voters in November 2000, allows first- and second-time nonviolent, simple drug possession offenders the opportunity to receive substance abuse treatment instead of incarceration. Despite the “model minority” myth and national data, which indicate relatively low illicit drug usage among APIs, youth substance abuse is a growing problem in the community, and Prop. 36 would affect many of the young API lives for years to come. David’s Addiction David had his first taste of marijuana at age 9. His father is a chronic drug user, and the marriage to David’s mother, Linda Kunihiro, ended before he was born. David’s father neglected to pay child support, and he has lived with his mother and the maternal grandparents since then. Young David scored marijuana from his friends and family, including his dad and older brother. “I didn’t think it was illegal, because I saw it all the time, family, friends. It wasn’t a big deal,” he recalls. Soon, he started drinking beer regularly. “When I first started drinking once in a while, smoking pot once in a while, smoking cigarettes once in a while, it was nothing,” he told The Rafu. “When it really started taking an effect was in high school. I had all this freedom and responsibility. It was up to you to go to the class, they are not gonna hold your hand for you to go to the class and push you. Once I got the freedom, I was ditching school every day. My freshman and sophomore years, I remember passing only one class.” And, it was during freshman year that he was introduced to cocaine, crystal meth, LSD, mushrooms, Ecstasy, prescription pills and painkillers. Although David felt no ambition or motivation when he was high, drugs relaxed him, made him feel better about himself. “I couldn’t be myself, I felt comfortable under the influence around people. I had low self-esteem and low self-confidence, so that’s why I did (drugs) so much,” he recalls. The baby who seldom smiled turned into an angry, very angry teenager. “I felt like I needed to fill this void, because I didn’t know too much about myself, too much about my family, about my dad. The only thing I was good at was drinking and doing drugs. Since I was good at that, I did it more,” said the recent Pasadena High graduate. In October 2003, David was caught for filling a pipe with marijuana in the school parking lot and placed under probation. A six o’clock curfew and bi-weekly drug tests were issued, but he had no intention of following them. He ran away from home all the time, slept on the street, stayed with his smoking buddies, and ended up failing all of the drug tests. The stress of getting into trouble with the law soon became another reason for him to get high. One day, he took about 40 painkillers and passed out at his friend’s house. “There was really no point to life. The drugs had messed up my emotions. I felt like I didn’t know how to feel. Only feeling I knew was anger; I didn’t know happiness, I didn’t know sadness. I was angry. I was angry at my dad, at my family.” Having observed the probation’s failure to make amends in this young life, a court ordered David to pick rehab or juvenile hall. “Honestly, I didn’t care if I went to either one. My view was like, if I get locked up, just do my time, come back out, hang out with my friends again, and go back to what I was doing. I felt the same way about going to rehab,” he explained, candidly. A year into the probation, with no better alternatives, he voluntarily entered the Olympic Academy. The Olympic Academy The Olympic Academy is an academic/residential facility that provides a long-term (12-18 months) care program for substance abuse to API youth ages 14-17. Thirteen staff members, including an LAUSD teacher, psychiatrist and nutritionist, supervise up to 16 kids in the 24-hour facility, which is located in a quiet residential neighborhood near the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. At the Academy, days are broken down by hours into studying, meals, exercising, meetings, chores, recreation and therapy groups. Academy Director Bryon Shinyama is known for his democratic manner of communicating with the young residents. He doesn’t tell them what to do, but instead, he prefers pointing things out and guiding the kids to their own conscience and decisions. “They learn how to cook, they learn how to clean, do the laundry,” Shinyama told The Rafu. “We try to make it as comfortable as it is for them. We call them our family. We try to help them do things normal teenagers would do, including recreational activities, stuff they can do when they go home. We just want to expose them to different things.” During the first six months of his stay at the Academy, David struggled to stick with the program every day, but gradually, he started developing a “consequential way of thinking,” in the family environment. Whenever he mentions the Academy, David’s face lights up. He seems anxious to share his experiences with anybody who would listen. “There was no abuse, verbal or physical (at the Academy). It was all like, ‘Can you please do this’ suggestions. It whipped me in shape because I was an out of control, immature, inconsiderate person. But, I felt like after a year and a half at the Academy, I have matured so much,” said David. Shinyama remembers David as an angry, quiet child, who wasn’t sure of himself. “But now, you can’t shut him up,” the director said, smiling. “I think he has come to terms with his father and it is not David’s fault how his father acted the way he did. He pretty much processed his childhood (while he was staying at the Academy). Now, he’s become much more comfortable with himself.” Currently, there are eight Latino, five Asian, two African American, and one Caucasian teenagers living at the Academy. Some of them have entered the program voluntarily, and others due to court orders. Kids can run away since there are no bars (only alarms) and the staff members have no legal rights to force them to stay. “New kids sometimes do (run away),” Shinyama explained. “They haven’t given the program a chance, and a lot of times, they are craving the drug so much so they are like, ‘Forget this. I am going out there.’” During the past four years of operation, the Academy has had 10 graduates, including David as its eighth graduate. “It is a very long and tough process,” said the JA director. “But, it is very doable.” Shinyama believes that family involvement and commitment play big roles in kids’ success or failure in the rehabilitation and prevention processes. “Parents involvement is very important,” he continued. “I understand they are very busy, but they should ask, ‘what’s going on?’ Talk to them. Make sure who their friends are, make sure what they are doing. Kids who think their parents always know where they are are less likely to do something bad.” Ford H. Kuramoto, D.S.W., national director of the National Asian Pacific American Families Against Substance Abuse (NAPAFASA) agrees with Shinyama: “A caring person, somebody who really loves them and supports them becomes very often a thing which helps somebody stick with the treatment.” NAPAFASA is a national private, non-profit, organization dedicated to addressing the alcohol, tobacco, and other drug issues of API populations. Founded in 1988, NAPAFASA involves service providers, families, and youth in efforts to reach API communities to promote health, social justice and reduce substance abuse and related problems. “Asian families are generally supportive of each other,” Kuramoto continued, “but it can also be hurtful in that they enable the person to stay addicted even though they mean well, because they can’t stand to see their loved one suffering.” David’s mother visited him every weekend at the Academy. The hapa teenager said his attitude toward her has improved greatly as she supported him through the rehabilitation. “I felt like I hated my mom. I never trusted her,” he remembers, with his emotions showing in his piercing eyes. “Back then, my only role model was my older brother. I looked up to him and I wanted to do everything he did. But now, it’s my mom, my grandparents, how strong they are.” “If people have more support, they can get somewhere. Someone is going to be there for you, you feel more confident about yourself,” he said. David saw his father for the first time in six years when he visited him at the Academy once, although, the relationship with his father still remains distant. “I know he had a reason, but I don’t think it was a good enough reason. He didn’t try calling or he didn’t visit me (before he entered the Academy). I can understand, because I’ve been down that road. There were points in my life I was using so many drugs I didn’t want to be around my family. I just wanted to be around my friends. I felt like my friends were more important, so I kind of understand his point of view. But, I understand that is not a valid reason,” David said, calmly. He graduated the Olympic Academy in June 2006—15 months after his probation got terminated—and went back to Pasadena High to finish his senior year. Substance Abuse Among API Youth A similar national survey indicated in 2001 that from 1999 to 2000, past-month marijuana use in API youth (12-17 years old) was 2.5 percent. Within the Asian ethnic groups, Filipino youth have the highest rate of past-month use, 5 percent, and Japanese have the lowest, 1.4 percent. Overall, Vietnamese youth have the highest current marijuana use, 2.8 percent, almost equivalent to that of Caucasians, 2.9 percent. However, experts and scholars suggest that the national data has limits in their accuracy mainly from two main reasons: 1. People are most likely not telling the truth when asked about their illegal activities, even anonymously; 2. APIs can be divided into more than 60 different ethnic groups. There are a large number of multiracial individuals, but the diversity was not reflected in the data until several years ago. “In reality, the problems are hidden and more severe than most of the national surveys indicate,” Kuramoto stated. “For example, one of the main national surveys, that is collected every year, doesn’t actually collect a very large sample of Asian Pacific Islanders. So, if you ask them what is the data for California, they can’t tell you that.” Interestingly, according to David Plunkett, “a little over 50 percent” of his former schoolmates were smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol recreationally. “At school, I saw people smoking pot everyday,” he said. “Sometimes, I thought to myself, ‘Man, if I really wanted to get high, I got the money now. I can just go up to these people and like, hey, can I get a hit?’ It’s simple, which is really scary.” According to the 2000 Census, there are 7 million people in the United States who identify themselves as more than one race. Of this population, 1.8 million are of partial API descent, and half of this population is under the age of 18. Multiracial API adolescents (grades 7 to 12) are significantly more likely to take drugs than the same age group of mono-racial descent. For instance, Dr. Rumi Kato Price, Department of Psychiatry research associate professor at Washington University, School of Medicine in St. Louis, announced in 2002 that among multiracial Chinese Americans, 36.5 percent have used marijuana, compared to 11.3 percent of mono-racial Chinese Americans. Also, among multiracial Filipino Americans, 9.9 percent have used cocaine, compared to 3.7 percent of those who are mono-racial. “Japanese Americans, among Asians, have the highest mixed race percentage. In that sense, Japanese American mixed races are really at higher risk of substance abuse,” Price told The Rafu. “My understanding is that Japanese Americans have been in this country the longest, except some Chinese who arrived earlier, and were probably the first Asian generation who spread out and mingled with the Caucasian population. They have assimilated faster compared to other Asian populations, and one of the indicators is substance abuse, licit as well as illicit.” Kuramoto agrees, “The United States consumes 80 percent of all the illicit drugs in the world. That’s one reason why becoming Americanized, becoming acculturated can be very harmful, including even a simple thing like diet. When they come from their native countries in Asia, as long as they have enough income to have enough nutrition, turns out, their diets are usually better than American food.” Shinyama doesn’t think that drug use among API youth is necessarily getting worse. It has been bad, he said, but now it’s finally getting recognized. “Which is good. It’s not as hidden a myth as it was before.” According to Shinyama, methamphetamines are the most popular choice of drug among teenage girls as many of them use it for weight control. Boys most commonly pick up marijuana to cope with stress, anger and frustration. Wayne Sugita, chief deputy director of Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Alcohol and Drug Program Administration, confirms this tendency. “One notable trend we’ve found is that almost all the Asian women have gone into treatment for methamphetamines. That’s very different than profiles of other women in treatment,” Sugita said. “We’ve seen methamphetamine use growing across the population, with more diversity in types of drugs used. But, in particular, Filipinas, it has been like 100 percent (methamphetamines). That’s the issue that we at the county are concerned about.” Sugita also pointed out that young Latina and API females (ages up to 25) are the fastest growing groups of methamphetamine users in the Los Angeles County, and so few APIs seek publicly-funded treatments. “It’s just a handful of people who seek it, but we are guessing that is just the tip of the iceberg,” said the County official. Shinyama at the Olympic Academy acknowledges that the trend has a lot to do with the Asian culture. “Model Minority myth and also the notion of we have to keep this from the public/shame issue, make our job more difficult in the sense that they won’t bring their kids here. Only reason they bring them here is because their kids are facing time in jail,” he said. “Sometimes, their moms and dads refuse to believe that their sweet child is using drugs. ‘My child gets good grades.’ But, just because they get good grades, that doesn’t mean they’re not getting high,” Shinyama continued. “Asian kids are very, very good at getting good grades and still getting high.” So, why do those kids take drugs? “Unfortunately,” Kuramoto explains, “a lot of young people get into trouble because teenagers and young adults think that they’re growing up and becoming adults, so they should do these things, like it is expected. Also, peer pressure. Very often, people get into serious trouble if they don’t realize (drugs) are all very harmful.” In David’s case, he started taking drugs at a very young age, because it was in his environment, because it was his curiosity, and because it was a way to deal with his emotions. Shinyama believes that there is no one particular reason why kids say yes to drugs so casually. “They could be just bored.” David’s Pursuit of Happiness “I’m tired of the lifestyle. I don’t want to be another statistic, I don’t want to be found in my room dead of overdose. I want to be somebody respected and trusted,” said David, who now enjoys painting and goes to rehab meetings four times a week. Asked what makes him happy, David answers without hesitation, “Family.”
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