You know, the way I respond is that outwardly,
it looks like we pulled ourselves up by our
bootstraps, and the only minority that's been
oppressed that's been able to do that.
But it's a distortion of the level of anxiety
that's underneath that, and the sacrifices
that are part of the trauma to choose careers
for safety rather than self-expression.
And I think that's a huge loss, that rather
than manifesting our greatest wishes or our
greatest talents or skills, that those had
to be conformed to.
And maybe that's true for a lot of people
no matter what, but I think that what's wrapped
around that is this level of anxiety.
That somehow if you don't...
like when I decided I wanted my actual birth
name, Satsuki, instead of being called Sandy,
my mother looked me straight in the eye and
she said, "Bad things will happen if you do
that."
So that's what she transmitted to me, was
that if you don't create this image and do
what you're told... and then I think as a
therapist, I have met with enough Sansei clients
to know that jobs taken, careers chosen, were
at great sacrifice to what they would have
loved to have done.
And I think of the loss that our community
and the rest of the world have suffered because
of that.
And then the level of anxiety, so lots of
anxiety, depression, it's like anxiety and
depression are one side or the other of the
same mental health issue.
And then anxiety often shows up as being driven.
And being driven in America is a good thing,
is seen as good, high achievers.
But there's a great physiological cost to
that, and mental cost to that, too.
