According to Clinical and Counseling Psychologist, Dr. Dina Buttu Ph.D, C.Psych, bicultural stress is defined as, “stress caused by difficulties encountered while having to live in two cultural environments that are difficult to reconcile…problems making sense of and integrating differences in dietary rules, dress, social behaviour, dating/marriage rules, and gender-roles.” Bicultural stress is prevalent in many immigrant communities and if not appropriately addressed can result in anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, substance abuse, disordered eating/body image issues, lower self-esteem, anger, family conflict, etc. National studies demonstrate that when adolescents (of both minoritized and majoritized backgrounds) have higher rates of bicultural stress, their mental health/well-being suffers.

Imagine uprooting yourself from the comforts of your home, bed and safety in the midst of a devastating hurricane not knowing if there would be a home on your return. This cracked open the window into how refugees must feel except there is no chance of returning home. About 2,100 people of all backgrounds and ages entered the gates of John I. Leonard. There was richness in life experiences and cultures. I met beautiful families and students of mine from Pahokee, Belle Glade, Haiti, the Caribbean, Bangladesh, Iraq, Guatemala and South America. All were united under one roof in Greenacres.

The first time I stood up on a paddleboard, I felt like an infant taking her first steps. It happened on a recent sun-filled Saturday on the calm water near Bingham Island in West Palm Beach. Although it’s less than half a mile from the traffic of Southern Boulevard Bridge, the area is densely wooded with mangroves — a sanctuary for birds, manatees, large schools of fish, and a popular spot for kayakers and stand-up paddleboarders.

“I am so happy. I’m working and learning to drive. Next week I’ll have a car.” Carrying a huge smile across her face, Syra Ali sounds like a typical 20-years-young premed student. Externally you can’t see signs of the long distance she has traveled both geographically and emotionally in the last five months

If you have a vagina, identify with having a vagina, or are vagina-friendly, the Vagina Monologues is a creative platform to brazenly vocalize the vicissitude of emotions embracing the vagina: trials and tribulations, joy, and hurt. And the mediums include humor, poetry, and voice.Recently, we...

"You used to be so beautiful. Now you are dark.” How can I forget what an Indian Auntie — much darker than I — offhandedly said to me when I was 13? Shocked, I didn’t realize I stopped being beautiful just because the sun had hugged me a little tighter over time. At that age I was ignorant that measurement of skin color for beauty was rampant among Indians. This was the onset of my “inferiority complex-ion”—feelings of inadequacy and insecurities for not meeting the cultural standards of a favorable complexion, resulting in deflated self-esteem and self-worth.

Photographs courtesy of beephotostudios The aroma of vegetable bhajiya sizzling wafted from West Palm Beach's outdoor Meyer Amphitheater across the idyllic Intracoastal waters during IndiaFest 2015 on Saturday, Feb. 21st. The full parking garages, crowded food lines, and brief rain shower didn’t stop the over 10,000 attendees from experiencing the magnetism of everything Indian. Beginning preparations as early as half a year ago, a committee of 27 volunteers from Palm Beach India Association (PBIA) organized their 12th annual IndiaFest, which is open to all and free. PBIA Treasurer, Sanjay Arora stated, "The purpose of IndiaFest is to introduce Palm Beach County residents to Indian culture, including food, clothing, entertainment and diversity within various regions in India. We hope and expect to expand the knowledge base of every attendee beyond stereotypes depicted by Hollywood and other media. People of Indian Origins are now contributing in every field in the American Culture and Economy beyond the 7-11, Motel workers and Convenience Stores employees. Over many years, Hollywood has depicted Indians working in these kinds of establishments. Among the attendees were high-powered businessmen, doctors, engineers, builders, accountants, entertainers, IT professionals, Biotech, and many more. We hope to continue the same effort every year and chip away the stigma associated with People of India Origins.”

It’s 4am. You receive a chilling phone call from the hospital. Your 78-year-old mother was rushed to the emergency room. She is diagnosed with a massive stroke and congestive heart failure. She is now unable to communicate and is non-responsive with difficulty breathing. She didn’t have a living will to identify her preferences for life-sustaining treatment nor did she designate a health care agent to speak for her in the event she is terminally ill or incapacitated. So the doctor asks you and your brother, the only surviving family, what kind of care your mother would wish if she were able to communicate. He needs an immediate decision whether to keep the breathing tube in or not. Both of you agree that the ventilator be left in. Fast forward two weeks. Your lingering mother’s health does not get better and will only get worse according to the doctor. Do you keep the breathing tube in or not? This causes a dispute between you and your brother. You believe she is suffering and would be happier if she and you all didn’t have to go through this any longer. You wish is for her to be taken off the ventilator while your brother wants to keep her on it. A family feud ensues.

Special to the Daily News Do you remember the days when your mother would knit and sew your favorite outfits? Today’s generation may be far removed from that time, but fiber-art maverick Leora Klaymer Stewart of Palm Beach was always around yarns and threads as she designed clothing with her mother growing up in Cape Town, South Africa. Palestinian-born and world-traveled, Stewart is fascinated by the colors, textures and malleability of various fibers and fabrics in exotic costumes, and in arts and crafts. She likes that “fabrics are used in so many important and beautiful ways, to not only adorn the body but to decorate surroundings and to be an integral part of life.” In her solo exhibition Transitional Fabrications, which is at the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County through May 24, she shows work that uses ancient textile techniques such as weaving, knotting, wrapping and intertwining. The techniques were developed in Spain, Peru, India and China, among other countries. - See more at: http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/news/local/fiber-art-maverick-uses-ancient-textile-techniques/nfmMp/#sthash.IKFyPhHg.dpuf

Due to a large number of internationally made and American-sold candies testing positive for the hazardous metal lead, the above rhyme may very well be the warning parents and children alike recite this Halloween. Halloween is the national holiday with the highest consumption of sweets and greatest sales for candy producers and stores. Since 2004, investigations done by the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) and the Orange County Register have found over 112 types of candies—many of them from Mexico—that have dangerously high levels of lead.

The Alameda County Junior Commission on the Status of Women held its inaugural Teen Summit, “Young Women Leadership,” Sept. 29 at Youth UpRising Center in East Oakland. More than 40 young women, youths and parents of different ethnicities from Berkeley, Oakland, San Leandro and Fremont, participated in the all-day functions advocating professional, personal and self-care empowerment through three sessions: College and Career Preparation; Teen Dating and Abuse; and Stress and Health.

Within the past few years, several yoga studios in the Mission District have begun offering classes en español in an effort to make yoga—the science of being in unity with daily living—more accessible to Latinos. However, low participation prompted some studios to discontinue those classes. Among the possible reasons for the low participation rate include Latinos’ lack of time, limited disposable income and cultural preferences. “Building a healthy community one class at a time,” is the motto at Mission Yoga.

Drumming, singing, and chanting among friends, strangers, and Mexican expats were not the only sights at the mobilization outside Univision’s San Francisco office on July 27. A steady flow of honking horns, power-fists and cheering from passing cars and critical mass cyclists synced smoothly with the Mexican Yo Soy 132 solidarity movement, which ignited in May in the midst of Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Enrique Peña Nieto’s presidential campaign.