Laughter is the Best Medicine

NAAPIMHA and the Asian Pacific Islanders with Disabilities of California (APIDC) celebrated May as API Heritage Month and Mental Health Awareness month by raising the awareness around mental health and disabilities.  They hosted “Laughter is the Best Medicine” at the George Washington University, Betts Theater in Washington DC on May 21^st that highlighted the comedic talents of  Shecky Wong, Ryo, and Esther Ku as well as the musical talent of Petawane who was given the distinction of being the “first honorary API dude”.  The event was produced by Korean American comedian Esther Goodhart, aka Oriental Beauty.  Not only is Ms. Goodhart a successful comedian, she understands the impact of mental health and physical disabilities, having faced both in her own life.  The event was a success and plans are being made to make this an annual event and going to different cities including New York City.

Earlier in the day, NAAPIMHA and APIDC held a forum that brought together individuals from Boston, Texas, and California who shared their personal concerns around quality of care and made recommendations to Dr. Larke Huang, Senior Advisor at the US Dept HHS, SAMHSA and Ramey Ko, a Commissioner with the President’s Advisory Commission on AAPIs. They were joined by other stakeholders representing various organizations, state and local entities.   SAMHSA generously provided travel support to bring in the consumers from around the country.  The consumer’s participation was made possible through the generous support of the US Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

Participants talked about the need to stop stigma and discrimination surrounding mental health and disabilities, improving the current workforce through cultural and linguistic competence training, insuring that healthcare reform addresses integrated care in a way that gives disabilities and mental health equal weight as primary care.  They also talked about the need to improve employment for consumers, including the opportunity to become peer specialists and community mental health workers.  There was also consensus that the consumer movement needs to have resources to strengthen their leadership capacity

• Herbie North of Long Beach, CA noted, “I hope the event rose awareness of the seriousness of Mental Health to the general population…and that those who attended would spread the awareness to others in their community.”
• APIDC Board Member Thai Yang of Fresno, CA commented, “The success from the forum and comedy show proved that Asians with disabilities can use laughter to heal from crisis experiences.”
• Can Truong, Dayton, Ohio,  Project Director for NAAPIEN, “It was so cool, so great that we got to meet with the disabilities people and learn from them and share our stories to see what we have in common and how we can support each other.”
• Kinike Bermudez Thomas, NAAPIMHA Board member and consumer advocate:  “The evening was a lot of fun. It was good to talk about laughter as a healing tool because that is what got me through my depression”