By Ji Hyun Lim
For many American teenage girls, life is filled with the thrill of picking out prom dresses, the excitement of learning to drive, and the rigor of applying for college. But teens who are sexually active have a host of other issues to contend with, top among them the possibility of getting pregnant.
Studies from the Centers for Disease Control, Child Trends Research, and The Alan Guttmacher Institute show that overall, teen pregnancy is has declined. But for Asian Americans like Mary* and Lisa*, the lack of resources can strain them financially while the cultural taboo of unwed parenting can strain them emotionally.
Hmong American Mary was 18 years old when she first discovered she was pregnant. She took a semester off school to have the baby, while her family and husband supported her financially.
“I was married culturally but not legally,” she said. “We plan to get married legally this summer.”
According to Hmong tradition, if a man brings a woman to his parent’s home, the couple’s families are open to discuss marriage. The two families, led by the head of the man’s household, negotiate a dowry and the costs of the ceremony for three days. After careful deliberations, the families unite in an official ceremony and a feast. Based on Hmong culture, Mary was married for two years before she had her child.
“If I were to get pregnant out of marriage, I would make my parents lose face,” Mary said.
She points out that in the United States, the average age for a Hmong cultural marriage is 15 to 16 years old. In Laos, Hmong women marry as young as 12 years old and as old as 18. Like herself, Mary said many of her friends were culturally married and pregnant as teenagers. In the Hmong cultural context, Mary had a traditional pregnancy; however, in an American context, she stands as one of the estimated 1 million U.S. teens who gets pregnant each year.
Indeed, the “Get Real About Teen Pregnancy” study, a public education campaign funded by the California Wellness Foundation, showed that that some 19 percent of all births to Asian and Pacific Islander American teens in California from 1989 to 1998 occurred among Laotian American teenagers (which includes Hmongs). The report also found that Guamanian Americans accounted for the second highest percentage of API teen pregnancies with 17 percent, while 14 percent of API teen pregnancies occurred among Hawaiians. Cambodians, Thais and Samoans accounted for 11 percent of API teen pregnancies each, and six percent occurred among Filipinos.
Though in traditional Hmong culture, girls are expected to marry and have children before they hit their 20s, in the United States, teen pregnancy can be taboo. Lisa, who is half-Hmong and half-French, discovered she was pregnant when she was 15 years old.
“My parents were upset because my father was a police officer who worked with gang enforcement, and I was doing the same thing they were doing,” Lisa said. “My mom didn’t talk to me for a long time. I stayed with the baby’s dad. He was really violent.”
Emotionally, she felt very stressed, confused, yet determined to finish school. Her responsibilities as a young mother prevented her from graduating high school on time, and she regrets her loss of freedom and time for extracurricular activities.
“I was brought up with a pro-choice [attitude] and I was scared and confused,” she said. “One day my father came and picked me up for lunch and we talked. He was really disappointed with me, but he didn’t want me to have an abortion and told me I had to make the decision as an adult because I wasn’t a child anymore.”
Although her mother and father eventually accepted her decision to keep the baby, Lisa still struggles. She takes six college classes, works part-time, and takes care of her child. She is now 20 years old and married, but not to the father of her baby. She has no regrets about keeping her child, but feels she would have been better prepared if she waited until she was as adult.
Said Lisa: “My advice to teenagers is to hold off on sex for a while. Be responsible for what might happen.”
There are organizations that assist teens like Mary and Lisa. In some cases, clinics like Planned Parenthood provide education on contraceptives and low cost services, with separate locations and hours for teenagers. Other family planning clinics, however, do not provide such specialized services.
The majority of the clients that utilize San Francisco’s Chinatown Public Health Center services are Chinese-speaking adults, according to Lei-Chun Fung, spokesperson for the clinic.
“I think there are barriers for teens because a lot of their parents use our clinic,” Fung said. “They’re concerned their parents might show up and the community is not open toward teens having sexual activity.”
Indeed, The “Get Real about Teen Pregnancy” program found that the 71 percent of the clinics it surveyed are not able to offer separate office hours for teens, and 87 percent of the clinics do not offer separate locations for this age group. Moreover, 70 percent of clinics report inadequate state reimbursement, and rising medical costs prevent access to contraceptives.
Meanwhile, Dana Lanery, a supervisor of TAAP (Teenage Pregnancy and Parenting Project) said the few Asian Americans who seek counseling at her clinic have very specific needs.
“They come to us wanting support because they might not have disclosed their pregnancy to their families,” she said. “They may need assistance on how to tell their families about their pregnancy.”
She added: “[Some Asian Americans who] choose to parent early can get isolated, it’s not culturally accepted.”
* Mary and Lisa are pseudonyms used to protec the privacy of the individuals interviewed. |
