Image Credit: White House AAPI Initiative
The White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders is launching the Act to Change campaign to prevent bullying. Because race-based bullying is so common among AAPI youth and since many kids in our community face cultural, religious or linguistic barriers from seeking and getting help, this is a big deal.
I’ve written before about my own kids’ experience being teased at school, and that post continues to be one that is visited frequently and generates comments and emails, two years after it was originally published. That speaks to the lack of resources and support for Asian American parents whose children may be experiencing racial bullying. Any kind of bullying is unwanted and difficult to deal with, but it can be especially complicated if your own parents discouraged speaking up or if there are few other Asians in your community. So I think this public awareness campaign is a really good start to opening up these discussions and empowering our community.
In case you would like to share this information with relatives who have limited English skills, information is also available on the Act to Change website in various languages, including Chinese Korean,Vietnamese,Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi.
Also… read my story of being bullied on the school bus as a kid in the 1970s, along with some tips on how to spot and address bullying from an expert from the Sikh Coalition: Racial Bullying Shouldn’t Be a Fact of Life on Mom.me.
Watch my segment with host Caroline Modaressy-Tehrani on HuffPost Live