Chriselle Lim and Love, Bonito are joining forces to advocate for Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month and Mental Health Awareness Month.
The man of influence and based in Southeast Asia Fashion are coming together to support AAPI women and emphasize the importance of mental health awareness within the community by advocating for better health care and resources. Lim and the fashion brand are donating $20,000 to the Asian Mental Health Project, which provides mental health resources to Asian-American communities.
“He is very stigmatized, especially within [the Asian] culture when it comes to mental health and taking care of your mental health,” Lim said. “We’re actually the least likely ethnic group to get mental health help, even if we need it, so it’s something that I’m really passionate about and it’s kind of a mix of my three worlds: fashion, mental health and AAPI Heritage Month.”
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, AAPI individuals have the lowest help-seeking rate of any ethnic group with only 23.3 percent of adults seeking mental health treatment in 2019.
Lim also emphasized that this initiative is important considering the increase in hate crimes against Asians amid the pandemic.
“Even before the pandemic, the AAPI community was the least likely ethnic group to receive mental health treatment due to systemic barriers and stigmas around therapy,” he continued. “That, along with the racism and discrimination related to COVID-19, I think [for] Asian Americans, particularly Asian American women, it’s more important now than ever that we create more practical steps so that we can change what I guess is stigmatized in our cultures and also not be ashamed of it.”
Along with the donation, Love, Bonito is launching a #LBWomenofAAPI content series highlighting several Asian American women, including Joan Nguyen Tran, co-founder and CEO of child care brand Bümo, and Carrie Zhang, founder of the Asian Mental Health Project. . . The women will open up about their own mental health journeys and discuss their Asian American identities in the content series. The series is also intended to give insight into AAPI culture and the Asian experience.
“Representation is really important,” Lim said of her involvement with Love, Bonito’s. AAPI Heritage Month initiatives. “That’s what Love, Bonito is really doing for the Asian community. A lot of people say, ‘What is the Asian-American experience?’ Because not much is said about it. Simply put, you’re never Asian enough because you’re not Asian of Asia, and you’re never American enough because you physically don’t “look American,” which is white. So being Asian-American, growing up we’ve always been playing between two worlds, like trying to be Asian, but also trying to be American. That has become our home, which is our middle ground and that centerpiece. This is how we have always lived. This is how we currently live and it is the Asian-American experience.”
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