Beyond Appearances

My Experience With Domestic Violence and Cultural Stigma in the South Asian Community

I never imagined I would lose almost all my neighbors and friends over a choice to stand up and resist abuse in my personal life. Sadly, I had to experience it.

I have lived in the Fremont area since first grade, and I have made many friends in my elementary school, in my after-school extracurriculars, in scouting, in cultural activities with the community, and in my neighborhood. I would visit them for after-school playdates, festivals, gatherings, and block barbecues, playing with other kids my age or slightly older during our afternoon breaks or ad hoc during COVID. All of that was part of growing up, and I learned to depend on and thrive within this community.

What’s the Problem?

At home, my brother and I have been dealing with a lot of abuse from my mom toward me, my dad, and even the pets for several years. I would talk about the abuse in a separate forum, as my focus here is on our choice to resist and take action, and on how the South Asian community around us received it.

A few years ago, when my dad was in the hospital, my brother and twelve-year-old me chose to call the police regarding the physical and psychological abuse we were facing. We fully expected retaliation from my mom and her friends to stop us from seeking protection, but we never expected that our own friends and neighbors, people who had always liked us, would suddenly turn against us. It left my head flooded with confusing questions: What was the problem? What did I actually do wrong?

Over the past few years of dealing with these social losses, I’ve realized this reaction comes from a deep cultural bias within the South Asian community, where keeping family matters strictly private is prioritized over mental health. Even though multiple trusted adults, like my elementary school counselor and psychiatrist, explicitly told me to call the police, our friends and their parents still cut us off, asking things like, “Why did you tell the police?” I ended up paying a massive social price for simply following the guidelines, which has stumped me: if another friend came to me going through something similar, would I be able to tell them to reach out to a trusted adult? How do we actually navigate through a cultural stigma like this?

“Log Kya Kahenge?”

My brother and I just wanted to be safe, but our community made us feel like we were the villains. It took me a while to realize this, but their reaction had nothing to do with us and everything to do with this massive cultural obsession with keeping secrets. In South Asian families, there’s a common saying called “Log kya kahenge,” which translates to “What will people say?” This phrase is basically an invisible prison in South Asian families because, aside from the literal meaning, it can be defined as the universal fear of what society will think. This phrase isn’t just basic neighborhood gossip, but it’s a heavy cultural pressure to keep family secrets hidden to protect their image. In a survey of South Asians by India Currents, 44% of people knew a woman facing physical abuse, yet 5% of them explicitly stated that an abused woman should never tell anyone.

This 5% statistic stunned me because it proved that we weren’t the only people who felt alone, and that the isolation we felt was part of a larger systemic pattern. isn’t just a number to me; it represents the social wall my brother and I hit when our neighbors turned their backs.

Additionally, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) show that about 30% of South Asian individuals deal with domestic violence. Still, a little over half of the survivors never call the police or get outside help because they’re terrified of the gossip and being cut off. 

So when we called the cops, we broke the ultimate golden rule: keeping quiet. Our neighbors didn’t stop talking to us because we did something wrong. They stopped talking to us because we refused to pretend everything was fine.

Where Am I Now?

Where am I today? As an approaching sixteen-year-old, is my life situation better, worse, or more of the same? When I called the police in 2022, my friends abandoned me. We were twelve years old back then, and most kids would blindly follow what their parents told them, which was the case for me. Four years later, sixteen-year-olds usually have a presence of mind in them after starting high school, but these same kids haven’t changed. When I was younger, I still had hopes that some of these friends would turn back after realizing the truth of what was going on. How could I tell? Some of these kids still came and had brief conversations with me, of course not about personal matters, but only about school things. I didn’t make many new friends in middle school because of how connected the elementaries were, but starting in my freshman year, I slowly made many new acquaintances while my relationships with my old friends went from brief conversations to no conversations, and now to not even any eye contact.

Call to Action

If we want our communities to thrive, we need to start asking different questions. For too long, the first response in a South Asian community to conflict or abuse has been, “Log kya kahenge?” or “What will people say?” putting reputation ahead of people’s safety. To change this problem, the first step should be replacing the first response with: “How can I safely support you?”

As a victim of the cultural stigma, getting through it is really hard; I haven’t gotten through it yet either. In my case of domestic violence and child abuse, I stepped away from the South Asian problems and focused on filing a restraining order (when I was 12), so I went to CALICO, which specifically focuses on child abuse and child protection. Along with that, I visited local organizations, based out of Fremont, like Narika, which provides confidential, culturally informed support for South Asian individuals and families experiencing domestic violence, emotional abuse, or isolation.

No family’s reputation should ever matter more than someone’s life, safety, or well-being. When we choose compassion over judgment and connect people with trusted resources, we help create a community where people feel safe to ask for help and to heal.

About the Author

Growing up in a household with a single parent is hard; what makes it harder is domestic violence from the other parent. On the bright side, I’m still managing to get through life with support from my father, brother, and dog. I am a rising sophomore, and I have interests in playing water polo, spending time outdoors, and/or being cooped up for hours in a room playing video games. I wrote this blog about the South Asian cultural stigma while being part of RCOZ 2026 HCSM.