Imagine having to live in a dangerous forest, where sharp sticks poke and draw blood and vines reach out to grab legs causing one to fall. Then imagine it is looked down upon to have an injury. That cut on the arm is a sign of weakness and that broken leg is a tell tale sign of evil. Now imagine that the cut is a cut to the ties of past friends, family and culture- one’s entire support system. The broken leg is a broken spirit from the life left behind. Yet still, these injuries are not valued as real. In Farah Ahmedi’s Other Side of the Sky, an Afghani girl who lost both of her legs to a land mine tells her story of coming to America. At the end of the novel when she and her mother are living in America, Farah describes her mother becoming an empty shell. She is mourning the loss of her tight knit family she left behind and the culture she knows and understands. It is clear that becoming an immigrant has deeply affected Farah’s mothers mental state and well being. In fact, immigrants coming to America face many barriers that make them more susceptible to mental illness; however, because of the stigma that surrounds mental …show more content…
Cultural differences are one of the main reasons immigrants do not get the help they need. In many cultures, mental illnesses have a bad reputation. For example, in Latino cultures mental illnesses are often associated with extremely negative things like drug and alcohol abuse, demons, or witchcraft (Rodriguez). Immigrants often tell their doctors about physical disabilities or illnesses that can be seen by the eyes because in a lot of immigrant’s native culture, physical ailments are deemed as real and acceptable, when often times the immigrant is dealing with a much more serious, unseen