Over the summer, the Los Angeles Times spoke with the Thai community in Los Angeles about mental health challenges and access to care. Reporters observed a self-defense class for massage students at Hollywood Career College, hosted virtual listening sessions with service providers and community organizations, distributed online questionnaires and set up a table for informal conversations at Wat Thai of Los Angeles, the first Thai Buddhist temple established in the country.
Many were concerned about limited mental health education and awareness.
Ben Komenkul, a travel advisor, said that while he has talked about his mental health with family and loved ones, he feels it’s not enough and wants to learn how such conversations can be more socially accepted.
Data and graphics journalist Phi Do speaks to community member at Wat Thai of Los Angeles in North Hollywood during the summer.
(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)
During the conversations with community members, people talked about their financial anxieties, stress due to overwork and the loneliness of adapting to a new culture in a new country. Some described managing their psychosis, how depression impacted their livelihoods and how schizophrenia affected their families.
Here is some of what The Times learned:
Some wanted their community to understand that while their mental condition may look invisible on the outside, their pain is real.
Kwanklao Disbanchong, a chef, didn’t realize she had depression when she opened her restaurant Ruam Mitr. At work, she flitted between paperwork, cooking, online orders, posting on social media, and making connections at farmer’s markets. She was grateful for her mother, who helped support her through the stress of running the business.
In 2022, her mother died unexpectedly. A month later, she separated from her wife, who had helped her run the restaurant.
Chef Kwanklao Disbanchong brings ingredients for a pop-up kitchen outside Bar Bandini in Los Angeles in September.
(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)
Disbanchong stopped doing the things she loved. For more than a year, she avoided touching anything in her kitchen, because it reminded her of her mom cooking for her every day. She retreated from friends and community members because they would offer unsolicited advice, insist that she looked “normal” or question her feelings because she owned a successful restaurant.
“I’m the one that knows myself,” Disbanchong said. “I want to tell people … that you cannot tell those who are struggling with mental health what to do. Just listen, sincerely.”
Salug “Dis” Rojanasopondist lost his oldest sister, Nonthavan Rojanasopondist, to suicide in 2018. She had been battling various mental health conditions including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and dissociative identity disorder.
His family cared for her as best they could. At his mother’s restaurant, they asked customers — police officers, social workers and community members — for advice, eventually connecting with a psychologist who spoke Thai.
Nonthavan Rojanasopondist, pictured in Long Beach in 2016, died in 2018.
(Salug Rojanasopondist)
The symptoms, however, worsened. Nonthavan would wander off in the middle of the night or cause disturbances at Thai temples. Once, she stole her mom’s car and drove north until she ran out of gas.
When Nonthavan died, Dis mulled over different scenarios, replaying events in his mind over and over.
“I encourage anyone else who might be dealing with something similar to not blame yourself, because it’s not something that’s within your control,” he said.
He remembers his sister as an artistic person who “taught me how to really appreciate art.” She loved to paint religious, ethereal drawings, which inspired him to take up portrait photography.
Suicide prevention and crisis counseling resources
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, seek help from a professional and call 9-8-8. The United States’ first nationwide three-digit mental health crisis hotline 988 will connect callers with trained mental health counselors. Text “HOME” to 741741 in the U.S. and Canada to reach the Crisis Text Line.
As an outreach community worker for Thai restaurants, Nongnapus “Mild” Phuangthong of the Thai Community Development Center said that many businesses are understaffed and fearful ICE will target them next.
“This leads to anxiety, because they’re afraid they’re not able to support themselves, find shelter, find food for their family,” Phuangthong said.
Other providers talked about feeling helpless to care for their clients amid changing legislation.
Chayanin “Teddy” Rattana-anun is a crisis counselor, family advocate and case manager at the Center for the Pacific Asian Family, which works to end domestic violence and sexual assault in Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. When President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” of tax breaks and spending cuts passed, Rattana-anun described it like a “truck hitting our emergency shelters.”
Rattana-anun, who often accompanies his clients to the Department of Public Social Services to help them enroll in Medi-Cal, said it sometimes takes begging, tears and luck to get approved. He has told his clients to get their primary care, dental care and eye care done as fast as possible, because next year, they may not be able to get care.
“It breaks my heart that something I’ve been doing, and it’s always, ‘Approved, approved, approved,’ and this is about to be taken away, and I feel like I’m counting to that time,” Rattana-anun said. “I’m scared for them.”
Many had suggestions for improving mental healthcare services.
Instead of using words like Rokhcit, which translates to “mental illness” and carries heavy stigma, Thai CDC program associate Kittima Chambers tries alternatives like Mị̀ s̄bāycı to describe an uneasy or uncomfortable feeling in the mind.
“We try to … use a milder word [for mental health], so [people] can feel free to talk about it without judgment,” Chambers said.
Pai Aromdee, a licensed clinical social worker, wants to encourage more Thai-speaking people to consider the mental health profession.
“For folks that want to work with and help the community … this [field] is a very meaningful way to do that,” Aromdee said.
A community member said she stopped by the reporter’s table at Wat Thai because she is a former health and human services teacher. Now in her 70s, she wants to help people, especially the elder generation, find information in Thai about how to maintain their physical and mental health as they age. People should be able to grow with these resources, she explained, because “everybody will get old.”
“So it’s good for me to connect with you, lest I die uselessly,” she said, laughing as she filled out the survey.
Several people encouraged their community to seek support if they needed it and to extend compassion for those struggling with their mental health.
Santipong “Golf” Rojanasopondist, a former U.S. Navy corpsman and Dis’ older brother, found it difficult to grieve his friends who died while serving and the death of his sister because he was raised to “Be a man and suck it up.”
Only after he joined a veterans therapy group and saw he wasn’t alone in his experiences was he able to start processing his post-traumatic stress disorder.
“When I’m in a group therapy setting or in my men’s group, I can really connect and be able to see and hear the other person’s pain and suffering,” he said.
Phiphop Phuphong, a Buddhist monk, visits people in senior housing and hospice to chant protective and healing verses known as phuttha-mon. These blessings help people find peace during their final days and allow family members to process their grief and acceptance of their loved one’s death.
“I want them to be connected with the sense of nature, of humanity and what it means to have a life,” Phuphong said through an interpreter.
Phiphop Phuphong receiving alms from community members on Hobart Street in Thai Town on Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025.
(Phi Do / Los Angeles Times)
Phuphong has had his own mental health struggles, exacerbated by living in a trailer at a Buddhist temple in Pacoima. He recalled his anxiety about whether the electricity would go out, because he uses a heart monitor.
This fall, Phuphong found permanent housing with the help of psychiatric social worker Wanda Pathomrit. He shares his story with other monks because he understands the cultural and labor expectations often placed upon them.
“Many monks who have medical conditions or face challenges may feel pressure to quit being a monk,” Phuphong said. “But with my experience, I hope I can be a pioneer and show what it means to get help.”
Interpreter Supakit Art Pattarateranon contributed to this report.
