That was about 20 years ago, yet Nguyen continues to see her personal experiences echoed in the experiences of the young Asian American Pacific Islanders with whom she works. In recent years, depression and suicide rates among young AAPI people have risen at alarming rates. Advocates, like Nguyen, are trying to stop the surge by ensuring more programming and awareness about mental health for AAPI youth.

“I see the same thing repeating,” said Nguyen, the executive director of Asian Women for Health, a Boston-based organization dedicated to advancing health equity. “It is a personal journey to see whether or not we can actually change this, because I refuse to believe that this continues the way that it does.”

AAPI youth face numerous barriers in opening up about their mental health struggles and getting the help they need. Within families, mental health can feel like a taboo subject, and the internalization of the model minority myth — the idea that AAPI people are universally high-achieving and emotionally resilient — makes it difficult to confront mental health challenges, according to youth, mental health advocates, and professionals.

From 2018 to 2022, suicide was the leading cause of death among Asian Americans ages 15 to 24, and the second leading cause of death among Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. In a 2024 study titled “Beyond The Surface,” almost half of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander young people surveyed scored above the threshold for moderate depression.

Cindy Liu, the director of the Developmental Risk and Cultural Resilience Laboratory at Harvard Medical School, advised the study and has researched AAPI mental health for 25 years. This area of research is “in some ways, a black box,” given how little data exists on Asian American experiences with mental health, she said.

“The emergence of mental health problems come during adolescence and that transition to adulthood. If we’re not getting data from those who are under 18, it’s really hard to intervene, and you end up intervening way too late,” Liu said.

She pointed to a lack of resources for AAPI families who are concerned for their children. Often, parents seek mental health support for their children after a tragedy rather than before, she said.

In AAPI communities, there is a “code of silence” surrounding mental health, Liu added. AAPI youth may feel shame and scared of burdening parents with their mental health struggles, she said.

“There is this notion of: ‘I’ll just keep it to myself. I’ll just sort of grin and bear it. I’ll white-knuckle through this particular period of time,’” Liu said.

Like other Asian American teens, Ying Kay Leung, 17, from Belchertown, does not reach out to his parents to discuss mental health. A first-generation Asian American, Leung said he feels an expectation to succeed on behalf of his parents.

“You have that pressure to do what they couldn’t do,” he said. “Your parents want you to do well, but sometimes, they don’t express the right means to help you.”

He added that the pandemic, and its social isolation, was a “really big point” in his life. Being isolated at home for a long period of time took a toll on his mental well-being, he said.

“Humans are social creatures. It’s hard to do well when you can’t talk to people face to face,” he said.

Seungbin Oh, an assistant professor in the Mental Health Counseling and Behavioral Medicine Program at Boston University, said the pandemic deeply impacted young AAPI individuals. The group grappled with increased anti-Asian discrimination on top of social isolation — circumstances that shaped their mental health.

Young Asian Americans who spend time on social media can experience racism in online spaces. After President Trump tweeted about “the Chinese virus” in 2020, the number of coronavirus-related tweets with anti-Asian hashtags increased steeply, according to a study from UC San Francisco.

It’s “especially concerning for youth,” because digital spaces are becoming a central space for their identity formation and mental well-being, Oh said.

“Digital space is like a reality to them. It’s more real than reality itself,” Oh said. “When they experience some racism or some sort of discrimination in this space, the negative impact there is much more severe.”

Especially for Asian American young people growing up in predominantly white communities, experiences with discrimination affect how they think about themselves, and in turn, their mental well-being. Chahat Kalia, 17, from Somerville, is one of few Asian Americans at her school. As she was growing up, her peers made countless microaggressions: mentioning her curly hair, the food she ate, and Indian accents.

The comments were detrimental to her mental health and made her feel that being Indian was “something to be ashamed of,” she said.

“I can’t hide the fact that my skin tone is brown, my hair is curly, and my nose is ethnic,” Kalia said. “But it’s easy to hide when you’re struggling with mental health.”

Advocates are working to increase access and deepen conversations about mental health for AAPI youth. Leung and Kalia are members of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Asian American and Pacific Islanders Commission’s Youth Council, and they have worked on awareness campaigns and are advocates for mental health in their age group.

Health professionals are also working toward a similar mission. The daughter of Bangladeshi immigrants, Nazia Denese, 31, is a psychologist based in Coolidge Corner, whose clients are predominantly South Asian. Outside her private practice, Denese and a co-facilitator host a free online support session, with the South Asian Mental Health Initiative and Network, for South Asian adults 30 and younger.

By removing financial and demographic barriers, Denese hopes to create an accessible resource for mental health. South Asians from all over the world, even France and India, have hopped online to talk about identity and pressures in careers and academics.

“Our space is meant to be a healing one,” Denese said. “Finally, you’re in a community of South Asian folks, who are responding in a way that is more careful and more attuned to your emotions.”

Catherine Le, 23, recently started working with Colleen Nguyen and Asian Women For Health. She is helping the organization develop “affirming and safe” community spaces to support the mental health of AAPI youth. In the programming, Le wants to follow a peer leader model, meaning youth like her get to lead the space.

“It’s definitely refreshing to have the agency to create something from the ground up to support this underserved community,” Le said.

Nguyen, who has a background as a community organizer, believes in a grassroots approach to improving AAPI youth mental health.

“I really do think the innovation for potentially addressing this challenge is going to come from the youth themselves,” Nguyen said.

Jessica Ma can be reached at jessica.ma@globe.com.