Open in Emergency

Open in Emergency: A Special Issue on Asian American Mental Health, published in late 2016 and then expanded and re-issued in 2019, is an arts and humanities intervention to decolonize mental health, a community effort, led by Mimi Khúc, to collectively ask what Asian American unwellness looks like and how to tend to that unwellness. The Asian American Literary Review (AALR), a Washington, DC-based arts nonprofit, provided a space for artists, scholars, organizers, and community to explore structures of care that we have already been building—and to dream into being new structures, new tools, to better care for our collective needs.

This special issue is a dynamic mix of writing, visual art, and interactive mini-projects, including: an original deck of Asian American tarot cards, a “hacked” mock DSM: Asian American Edition, a “treated” pamphlet on postpartum depression, a foldout testimonial tapestry-poster, and handwritten daughter-to-mother letters.

Made possible through a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign, Open in Emergency sold out its initial print run in one year after over a thousand individual sales, dozens of university course adoptions, and many donations to community organizations. Its 2019 second edition sold out in 2023 and is now available open access in digital form (coming soon).

Mimi Khúc continues bringing Open in Emergency to academic and community spaces all over the country through lectures, interactive workshops, mental health pop-ups, and other public programs. Read about its making in the first chapter of dear elia: Letters from the Asian American Abyss.