AG: I am touching upon that family aspect that is definitely something that I value so much in South Asian culture. Both my parents have really brought me up to show that family does come first and my family is really big and we have these big family gatherings and Christmas, Thanksgiving and that's just something I will cherish forever. But kind of to touch upon what I don't like about South Asian culture… it's not so much that I don't like, but it's so much how South Asian culture stereotyped. So going to a Catholic school I am very used to these stereotypes and it sometimes makes you wanna doubt your origins, makes you wanna doubt your heritage. For example, in class, I think a year ago I was asked if I was fed math problems for breakfast. And if I smelled like curry and if my perfume is curry and it's just stereotypes like that, that can really be harming to your self-esteem but also make you want to kind of separate yourself from your culture and I think that's definitely something that needs to addressed in teen communities, that these stereotypes aren’t true… but the Bay Area teens, especially South Asian Bay Area teens, do a good job trying to break these stereotypes.

IB: Another thing that I am not a particularly big fan of for South Asian culture is the lack of acceptance for a difference in opinion. It's very hard to have a different opinion than your entire family and not get reprimanded for it. This is not really talked about that much but it is a big problem because compared to Western culture. Western culture is very accepting of different opinions and of individuality which isn’t something shown in South Asian culture.

IB: In South Asian culture I love, how Alisha was saying, I love family for me personally, a family is super important like my grandparents live with us, my entire extended family, we are super close with them. Our family is not just my parents and my sister but it's also my extended family aunt, uncle, and cousins which I really like and I don't see that in Western culture as much like my friends who are not Indian or of South Asian culture don't really have them close bond with their family as like South Asians do.

AG: My mom, actually she grew up all over the world so she was born in India, then she moved to Kuwait and then London and then to the United States for college and so I think that gives her some diverse perspectives which I have been fortunate enough to be blessed with. So she is the most understanding when it comes to there are different cultural norms and there are different societies and we are brought up in different ways so I was brought up in a very open-minded, time-are-changing mindset. This question is hard for me to answer from my perspective. However, I know a lot of my friends going to high schools in Cupertino and the Bay Area close to me that do face this kind of separation between their parents because of the harsh expectations and I think the harsh expectation actually make them more deviant from their parents… so when you see kind of forceful nature, like your parents are saying you have to get only A's, or you cannot go out friends until every homework is done, I think that that balance of social life and studying and family time is offset and that actually causes children to become more rebellious and I think that's just in human nature and I see that as kind of a downside because if only we could have got through that barrier of understanding then I think children's lives could be a lot healthier and you're going to see greater mental health and you're going to see more understanding and accepting of cultural norms.

IB: I definitely agree with Alisha. I personally can't, I don't have any personal experience of this because my parents are also very open-minded to different cultures, however I can see this a lot with my friends. For example, one of my friends, her parents want her to dress very modestly, so when she comes to school she'll be wearing two jackets and jeans and then she'll come to school and take off her jackets and obviously her parents don't know this. How she presents herself at school is very different from how she presents herself at home and then there is this huge gap because her parents don't really know how she actually is, and that kind of just shows that parents have very high expectations of their kids and because of that their kids can't really talk to their parents about who they are as a person because they're scared that it will make their parents upset or it'll be defiant towards their parents.

YG: Yeah in my opinion communication is the number one thing that any relationship needs, and when it comes to parents understanding their children. I feel like it's really important for each person as being a parental figure and child to understand that you both are going to have to compromise, you both are going to have to understand each other, and the number one thing that parents do that, the reason that relationships don't work out and the reason why parents don't know about their teenagers or their child's till they're out of colleges. Parents should know who their child is and what image and who they are as a person and to know that they have to be willing to understand their child to understand what they're feeling, who they are as a person, how they want to be seen as in society. Forcing values on somebody, forcing values on your child is only until they are five or six years old, after that your child starts building up and now they're starting to turn into their own person. So, whatever is done is done and I feel like that's hard for parents to realize that they're not going to be able to not force, but instill some values that they still want to put in their children, but the time to do that was only for a couple of years now they just have to help them grow instead of trying to show them how to grow.

IB: I think that every high-schooler is going to have stress, every high-schooler’s going to have to be facing their own war of moral values versus their parents. It's not just South Asian thing, however, I think the problem here or one of the biggest problems is the taboo against mental health and what Isha was saying about like clothing and modest wear, but on mental health in particular, I think that's where a lot of South Asian parents don't really believe it's a thing and that could be its biggest detriment and so again communication, really opening up and understanding there are methods to help a child who is feeling stressed- that's going to be a really big breakthrough to getting that understanding, and helping your child to survive through tough times.

YG: Yeah, and touching on that point I feel like that a misconception everyone has is that college is what success is. I mean one thing that I have heard from a person is that I'm going to ask Alisha, I'm going to put Alisha on point. Alisha if somebody were to give you 10 million dollars right now but not let you invest or not let you use it in any way is it worth it to you if you couldn't do anything with the 10 million dollars but you were given 10 million dollars.

AG: If I can't do anything like ever with the 10 million?

YG: Ever

AG: Then why?

YG: There is no value in it.

AG: I don’t think so

YG: There is no value in it and I feel like that's what people get confused when it comes to college, they feel like if my child goes to college then… when your child goes, there's so many skills and life skills, that have to you put in your child because your child going to the best university going to Stanford, Harvard it doesn't set them up for success. If they don't know some of the principles that they need to lead them to success then there's no point. It's like somebody giving you 10 million but not letting you do anything with it for your entire life, it has no value… so if your child doesn't learn the skills and principles that they need to know before going then what does a Stanford degree really have to do for them.

AG: Yeah, I completely agree with that. As a senior, I just finished the college process, and what I realized is that every college is good, and I truly believe that wherever you go is for the best. Going through the college process just made me realize that we don't need an ivy brand that most South Asian parents will push for because it's really whatever is suited best for your child and that's only going to come through experience and that's going to come through knowing who you are, by knowing what you want in life, and hard work in the end. And kind of going back to my high school experience as well I think, in my middle school I was really pushed towards a private school and that's the main reason I chose St. Francis, a Catholic school, but looking back at it I'm thinking that all of the schools in the Bay Area are just equally as good; they provide you with the same information. It's really what do you do with the education, and what you do with the opportunity that makes a difference not exactly where you go, of course, that's going to help, but it's you as a person that's going to take you all the way

YG: I have to touch on that, what you said Alisha makes a lot of sense ‘cos regardless of whether I go to Stanford or I go to UCLA. It's obvious that Stanford is better, but math is going to stay in math. People are going to say that I have to send my child to the private school or have to send them to the best school of the district or whatever school is going to release the most ivy league students but math is math, science is science, social studies is social studies. What Stanford teaches me, two plus two is always going to be four. If Stanford teaches me that or UCLA teaches me that, it's the same answer, four is the answer, and I feel like for most parents it's hard to realize that your child's education matters on how hard they are willing to work. Subjects are the same, if they're going to take a course on business or medicine or anything like that the concepts are the same. Sure, the teaching may be different but going to a school that's way better or way more expensive doesn't make a child smarter for sure, it probably just adds more stress on to them.

IB: Yeah, I definitely agree with Yash and Alisha, and I think that one of the big reasons why South Asian parents want us to go to Stanford rather than UCLA is because of the competitiveness, the competitive nature of South Asian culture, like South Asians are very competitive and like you see parents saying” oh my kid got into XYZ college” and “my kid got into this college” right and you can see that competitive nature even if it’s not directly said or explicitly said it's there… so like a kid going to Sanford, like saying your kids that went to Stanford sounds much better than saying your kid is going to UCLA.

AG: I think that this goes back to something I was saying earlier. Every teenager is going to have to balance between two value systems and that's going to be what your parents give you and your own value system, and your own value system is going to come from the experiences and the people that you are around and whether American culture, Caucasian culture, or if it's any other group that you are around. It's going to be you and your values from your experiences that you've gone through, versus whatever values your parents have given you, and I think that to a certain point you just have to balance the two and trust your gut. You can only take so much that you've learned from your parents, and know that they're doing everything in their best ability to teach you the right way but also trust your heart and know that you have to do what you have to do.

YG: What ends up happening is we are what culture we are raised in… the hardest part I feel like, this is in general, cause in any other way, I feel like, I don't know, I don't like saying these specific race but it is in South Asian culture races, we are trying to teach our children to be a certain way and it's the complete polar opposite to what we are at school or what we or what this country is about to let's face it America, USA, in this country everyone is equal, everyone's thoughts and ideas are accepted. In South Asian communities, we are taught we have to dress a certain way, we have to act a certain way, we have to say certain things, we have to do certain things. And the hardest part, I feel like for kids here and the reason why the kids go into depression and the reason why kids have mental health issues, the reason they hate school and hate life is because they are being taught something else at home to do what their parent’s expectations are but then their heart is somewhere else.

IB: I definitely agree. I think that because of these cultural expectations that south Asian parents have it's very hard for teenagers to trust their parents and be able to talk to them openly about their life and outside of what happens in their house. I actually have an example of this, I know someone at my school, she's Indian and she barely talks to her parents and her parties a lot. She goes to a lot of parties. So, a few weeks ago she went to this party and she got really drunk but she couldn't tell her parents to come to pick her up. So, she drove and she totaled her car. Now it's 3 a.m. and she totaled her car. Her parents have no idea; they think that she's sleeping over because they are studying or something. And she does not know what to do. She calls me, and she's like “Isha what do I do” and I'm like “you have to call your parents there is no other way, there's nothing else you can do.” And she called her parents and of course, her parents were mad but that opened up the discussion that she was able to have with her parents and it allowed her to be more open with her parents. Her parents did get mad, but that incident opened up an avenue for her to be able to talk to her parents. Now I know that she and her parents are much closer, and there is a bigger trust level which means that she's not going out rebelling all the time. Because there is that communication happening.

AG: For any South Asian parents out there, or even the teens, I have read an amazing book called The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. This book basically opens you up to the cultural divide between parents with South Asian backgrounds and teens. We see this male basically move and grow up in life in India and then move to the United States, and kind of disavow everything that his parents taught him. But in the end, he comes to the realization that, both the parents and child, that they need to be more open with each other. The book is a great starter for any parents or any teens that are willing to get that communication back on the road and actually pinpoint where there are breaks in communication, to kind of establish that relationship even better.

IB: Yeah, I definitely agree, and I don't think that all the expectations of south Asian parents have on their children are bad. I just think that there needs to be more communication between the parent and the child, and there needs to be a mutual understanding and mutual respect between the two.

YG: Yeah, my number one thing that when I talk to parents about anything is to ‘learn how to be a friend before you become a parent.’ I feel like becoming a friend to your child is the number one thing, the number one gift, that you can give to your child. Before you become a parent and learn how to be a friend to them. Don't expect your teen to open up to you, don't expect your teen to tell you about their life, if you're not a friend to them. you being a controlling parental figure in their life is required, but you need to learn how to be their friend first. In my opinion, the positivity and kindness that you give to the child shows that you're there for them in support, giving them that assurance opens up so much more. If you don't give them that assurance to them, they're going to hide things for you, they're not going to want to talk to you, that barrier is always going to be there. But it starts from now, it doesn't. It doesn't matter what age they are right now whether they're a teenager or they're just born, if you spend time with them whether they flunk a test or get into trouble at school, tell them that it's okay and let’s go out to eat. Figure out a way to be their friend, ‘cos once you become a friend of your teenager you're done. They're going to open up to you, they're going to be there, because they're going to realize that regardless, I might be in a bit of trouble but I know that that they are supporting and that it is important for your teenager to know that you're the backbone, you're there for them, the fact is that if your teenager is going in a court case right now or going through something terrible that you are behind them regardless.

IB: Yeah, I can definitely attest to this, my mom is basically my best friend and I can tell her anything, there is nothing about my life that she doesn't know, which also means that I respect her so much more and I follow her rules so much more, because she also respects me and she respects what I like and who I am.

AG: Kind of going off of what Yash said, a friend isn’t only someone that feeds compliments, a friend also tries to guide you to the right path, and I think that's super important once you learn how to balance that ‘I'm going to guide you to the right path but I'm also going to be supportive and always have your back so we can open up’ and that's where you get those perfect relationships between your child and a parent.

YG: And one thing is just I learned, my best friend's name is Rushell Arwood, she's like a mother to me, because of the way, she is like when I say she's like a mother to me when I look at my mother and Rushell there is no difference obviously there's a difference in the fact that I spend more time with my actual mom but she treats me like her brother and a friend isn’t somebody who condones with the wrong stuff, a friend is someone who helps you get out of those wrong stuff. A friend is somebody who doesn’t yell, doesn’t scream at you, but shows you the concept of “this is wrong, let’s change, and I am here with you every step of the way.” And once you give that assurance to somebody, anybody, I mean that how do people make money online, how do people sell any product online when they give the assurance to somebody that you know that this product is going to help change your life, this product is going to walk you step-by-step. So when you give that assurance to your child that I am here with you step-by-step, wrong, good, bad, ugly, I'm here for you. They know that regardless of what they've done you're there for them, and then they will open up to you.

IB: It was Mental Health Week, National mental health week, and I saw an ad and it was an Indian actress and she basically said that she had to depression when she was 13 and luckily for her she was able to open up about it and get a cure and she was on antidepressants and it really helped and I thought that was the best ad I'd ever seen because here we have a south Asian figure that is actually opening up about Mental Health and that's not something that we get very often, in fact, one of my really close friends, she is really sad all the time and I don't want to diagnose her with anything myself, but I have been told her that look you need to tell your parents what's going on so you can get help and her only response to me was I tried telling my parents and they said that if I go to a psychiatrist or a clinic, our reputation will be hurt… and I thought that that was astounding because of its reputation of dislike perfect South Asian background; this is how South Asians need to be and we need to be strong and we can't face mental help we need to be smart versus actually getting the help their daughter needed, and I think that is one of the biggest things, what are we that valuing more, and that's stopping a lot of children from opening up and getting the help they need.

Yash: Yeah and I feel like the concept of suicide and hurting yourself, it's too late when they are about to do it. A lot of South Asian parents think that when they're on the phone with their child and their child is saying goodbye or saying this is what is happening now I'm taking this action, that's not the time to make the change, the change happens before the actions are done. So for you to prevent your child for doing that, it always comes down to your communication, it always comes down to the idea of you being open to your child and understanding to their emotions, and understanding that they are who they are, and if they're facing a certain thing you need to learn how to help them and you need to not miss that time and sending them to the therapist and counselor will not work, but you as a parent will realizing that whatever issue your teenager is dealing with you finding a solution I'm walking them through it and understanding their emotion for some people that's enough, for some teenagers it's that much that if you just sit with them for 1 hour and talk to them about their emotions that's all they need I might don’t require a lot of money you don't need to spend thousands of dollars on counseling and therapy and all this stuff, but if you can just sit with them and talk to them it could change their life.

AG: I definitely agree with that… more often than not, South Asian teens just need some support from their parents and their loved ones, to not want to do something drastic like taking their own life away. I have an example of this, someone at my school, her parents were very religious and very traditional, and she's not straight, she is bisexual. So, she had a girlfriend and her parents found out. Her parents almost disowned her, they did not want to talk to her, they completely shut her out. They sent her to those camps where they tried to “fix you” and that ended up resulting in her taking her own life. That happened a year ago, and after that, after the fact, her parents come out and say that, and they have so much guilt because they know that if they were just open with her their child, and if they just gave her some support, something like that would have never happened.

IB: I agree with both what Alisha and Yash said… I do think that at times clinics can help, I know a few of my friends who are in clinics and if that relationship, especially with your parents, is in there then it is a good alternative… however in I do think that the first step is that opening up to your parents and I think that solves a lot of the problems that are occurring and so that will be like the first thing to go to, to just talk it out with your parents, they made you, they know you, and that's going to be a really big breakthrough, in terms of like communication and mental health.

AG: When I like to talk about gender inequality, I would like it to start with feminism, I feel like it has been really misconstrued in today's day and age in which a lot of people think that it has negative connotations when in fact it is really just fighting for equality. Actually, I have recently witnessed some sort of gender inequality. I was applying to a job it was, it was an internship, around 40 applicants from a bunch of schools around the Bay Area and then top five get selected for an interview an in an in-person interview in which from only two will get selected for the final rolls well, in the top five I was the only girl crush. Now, I got a lot of mixed reactions with this in this case when I reached the interview question. One male came up to me and said, “you're definitely going to get the job” and I was the first like “oh thank you, like why do you think that” and he goes like “your female; they're just going to give it to you because they want diversity”, and I took offense to this because they should be giving it to me because I'm equally qualified and if not then don't give me the position. I think that we need to be measured on an equal level not solely because I'm a female and that should put me and either disadvantage or an advantage and another response I got was that I don't know why you are here you would you definitely can do this job it is a stem-based job it's about finance and that I think is a lot of response that we usually hear is that because we are a certain gender we have certain abilities or disabilities that we can or cannot do and that somehow defines us but I think that just blatantly wrong and everyone needs to get the concept of gender stick to a certain role out of their head and really accept that female, males alike can do amazing things and can do equal things, and need to be treated on the same level.

YG: I feel like it's really all about knowing that, if you're facing gender inequality or if you're facing gender discrimination, I feel like it's all about pushing through it because regardless of what anybody says gender inequality sadly it's never going to be completely gone. It's always going to be part of this world there's always going to be out there they're going to people who think that women are less than men or men should be doing certain jobs women should be doing in certain things, and it's always going to be part of my opinion if you're facing it, push through and if you ever see at the best way to try to as much as you can eliminate gender inequality, get rid of it, is to stand up for when you see it to stand up for yourself when you see it. It may be awkward and may be hard but it really is calling somebody out on and saying that this is not okay. Why is it that? Is it because I am a female? Why is that if I am a male, I can’t babysit? You know, it is really calling it out ‘cause the more people that call it out the more people will think that it's okay to express this opinion because they feel more insecure about it and they stop.

IB: I definitely agree with Yash but a lot of wrong with calling it out, I think that it's important to support others to help them gain the courage to call things out, because often time many women, for example, are scared to come out because they're scared to stand up to gender discrimination because they're scared that they will lose their jobs, they're scared that if they do something then something bad will happen to them, or they will end up being publicly humiliated, and I think that we as a community need to start supporting each other so that it’ll be easier for women to come out and stand up to gender discrimination that is happening

AG: I think the biggest thing is that realization, that we grew up in a different society, and times have changed which means our experiences have changed, with that is going to come different knowledge, different culture, different values, it's going to be that affirmative messaging which means that I'm in support of what you're going through, so you can open up to me but I will guide you the right way, and that's going to help build a bridge between the parent and the child.

YG: Yeah, my one message to parents out there would be that be a friend, be a friend to your child, open up to your child explain to them the failures that you have faced in your life, show them the experiences that you've had in your life, and now you are in the same position that they are in just be their friend because friendship never hurts and you're there for them, everything will go well once you get your child to realize that you're there for them.

AG: My one message would be: prioritize your child's happiness. Nothing is more important than your child being happy with where they are in their lives and of course, parents want what's best for their child but more than that parents need to think about the fact that they are really happy with where they are? Are their children happy? And I think that precedes any type of doing well, any type of success that their child might be having at the time.