Books & Resources
Sam Louie is an Emmy Award-Winning former broadcast journalist who has reported on a number of issues related to race, culture, and psychology. He has written books on the intersection of race and culture and its impact on mental health. In addition, Sam has a popular blog on Psychology Today focusing on issues of race and psychotherapy.
Click links below for more information:
Passport to Shame: From Asian Immigrant to American Addict (2024)
Many Asians are drowning in cultural shame and addictions thus “suffering in silence”. Is this any different from a traditional Westerner? I would say very much so. Shame is embedded in the Asian way of thinking, behaving, and interacting. If you do not understand the cultural history of shame and its underpinnings, then you will have a hard time understanding the mindset of typical Asians, let alone the stranglehold of shame in their midst.
Sam Louie grew up torn between cultures as part of a first-generation Chinese immigrant family from Hong Kong living in a predominantly African American neighborhood in the United States. He experienced the duality of existence with the tension of two vastly different worldviews, his identity intertwined with the country he lives in and his ancestral ties. What traditions and cultural beliefs get preserved, what gets discarded, and what gets lost in translation? Beneath it all was the presence of three generations of addiction, trauma, and shame.
In this bold, insightful book, he documents the challenges of immigrant experiences and how maladaptive coping mechanisms in the form of compulsive behaviors were a means to gain a sense of adequacy due to the cultural tide of shame and ostracism within his own ethnic heritage and the external world.
This is a collection of poetry touching on themes related to Asian-American identity, mental health/addictions, and faith drawn from both my professional experience working with clients but also my personal struggle with identity, cultural shame, and addictions.
