For years, you didn't have words for what you were.

Not accurate words, anyway. Not words that felt right. You'd say "mixed" and people would nod politely. You'd say "half-Asian" and feel something twist inside you, like you were suggesting to being incomplete. You'd stumble through explanations at family gatherings, in new friend groups, on forms that asked you to check a single box.

I still remember making tiny play-dough potstickers, when I visited my grandparents' in California growing up, and watching my Abu (grandma) make tiny perfect folds with the bright pink “dough”. I was learning about my Chinese heritage through food (fake and real), through my grandparents' stories (when they would share them), through the few Mandarin and Shanghainese words I picked up. And I was also sitting at the dinner table knowing my dad's family cooked differently, spoke differently, saw the world differently.

"What are you?"

"Where are you really from?"

"But you don't look..."

If these questions feel painfully familiar, you're not alone.

A colleague of mine was describing a helpful healing practices she was doing as “a little woo woo,” casting her eyes down as if awaiting a verbal blow of judgment from me. Instead she seemed surprised and a little cautious when I offered curiosity instead “Oh, that sounds really cool, could you tell me more about that?”. I don’t need to specify what practice she was talking about, because maybe it was meditation, somatic therapy, energy work, intuition, or anything that didn’t fit neatly into a Western, evidence-based box. We’ve all heard someone use the phrase “woo woo” in a way that invokes judgment and shame around a potentially helpful practice.

Many of us grew up hearing explicit or implicit messages like “Work hard, make your family proud, and don’t waste the sacrifices that were made for you.” These messages often come from love, perseverance, and cultural survival. They’re passed down through generations that endured hardship by prioritizing endurance, humility, and achievement.

But over time, these values can turn into overwhelming pressure. You may feel driven to achieve, hesitant to rest, or afraid to disappoint others, while constantly living with a quiet sense of “not enough.”

When clients come to therapy, many wonder whether their cultural background “matters” in the work. The short answer? It absolutely does.

I’m starting a new virtual support group for adults who identify as mixed-race, multiethnic, or multicultural Asian, Pacific Islander, and/or Desi American (APIDA).

It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time…

We hear a lot about trauma these days. We talk a lot less about intergenerational trauma, historical trauma and complex post traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD).