Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang's wife, Evelyn, told CNN she was sexually assaulted by her gynecologist in 2012.

She said she initially didn't tell her husband and, at the time of her interview in January 2020, had not told her parents.

Her experience is not unique.

This years-long silence mirrors those of two other Asian women: Chanel Miller, who accused Stanford swimmer Brock Turner of rape; and Rowena Chiu, who accused Harvey Weinstein of attempted rape.

Miller and Chiu have spoken of the immense pressure on Asians to internalize their trauma, which played a role in their public allegations.

But Yang, Miller, and Chiu's stories may encourage other Asian women to speak up.

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Evelyn Yang, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, gave an emotional interview with CNN where she said she was sexually assaulted by her gynecologist while pregnant in 2012.

She spoke openly in the interview, which aired Thursday, about how she didn't tell anyone about her trauma initially, saying she "didn't want to upset them" and thinking she could "compartmentalize" the trauma alone.

"I didn't tell Andrew or my family because I didn't want to upset them," she said. "I thought: this happened to me, I can process this, I can deal with it, I can compartmentalize it.

"I just didn't want to affect others. I certainly didn't want Andrew blaming himself for not being able to go with me to these doctors' visits."

Yang fought for two years to keep her identity anonymous in her lawsuit against Robert Hadden, the gynecologist, who pleaded guilty in 2016 to charges involving two of his accusers: one count of forcible touching and one count of criminal sex act in the third degree. Eighteen women had accused him of sexual assault at the time.

Yang hadn't even told her parents when she sat down for the CNN interview, the network reported.

Her experience is not unique.

Her yearslong silence, and efforts not to draw attention to her trauma, mirror those of many other Asian women who have silently endured their stories of sexual assault.

Evelyn Yang, wife of Democratic presidential candidate, Andrew Yang, in an interview with CNN aired January 2020. CNN

In 2019, two Asian women broke their silence on their own, very high-profile, sexual assault stories.

One is Chanel Miller, who accused Stanford swimmer Brock Turner of raping her on campus in 2015. (Turner was convicted in 2016.)

The other is Rowena Chiu, who accused her former boss Harvey Weinstein of trying to rape her at the Venice Film Festival in 1998. (Weinstein told Chiu he had "never had a Chinese girl," she said. Weinstein has denied all her allegations.)

Both cited their Asian identities, and pressure to be a "model minority," as the reason they stayed silent for so long.

In her September 2019 book, "Know My Name," Miller — who is half-Asian — described confronting her fear of becoming a "protagonist" in her story after a statement she had written anonymously went viral.

"My statement had blazed, erupted, was indomitable. But I was holding a secret fear, that there must be a cap, an end to this road, where they'd say, you have achieved enough, exit this way.

"I was waiting to be knocked back down to size, to the small place I imagined I belonged. I had grown up in the margins; in the media Asian Americans were assigned side roles, submissive, soft-spoken secondary characters.

"I had grown used to being unseen, to never being fully known. It did not feel possible that I could be the protagonist."

Chanel Miller. CBS News/"60 Minutes"

Chiu, who is British-Chinese, signed a non-disclosure agreement shortly after the alleged incident with Weinstein, which prohibited her from speaking about it for years — even to her own husband.

But another big reason was cultural, she said. Here's what she wrote in The New York Times in October 2019, when she publicly revealed her identity for the first time:

"The idea of the Asian immigrant 'model minority' is a cliché, but at least in my British-Chinese family, we were afraid of standing out. I was taught not to talk back — to aunties and uncles, to my parents, to my teachers, to perfect strangers. I learned the social benefits of being deferential, polite and well behaved.

"As with many Asian women, this meant that I was visible as a sex object, invisible as a person. Harvey may not have created this imbalance, but he and many others have capitalized on it, knowingly or unknowingly, to abuse women of color."

Women protest across the street from the Manhattan court where Harvey Weinstein's sexual assault trial is held, on January 10, 2020. Carlo Allegri/Reuters

The myth of the 'model minority'

Members of the east Asian diaspora, particularly in countries like the US and UK, are often stereotyped as a "model minority," and subsequently expected to act as such.

This essentially means: keep your head down, don't complain, and maybe then you'll integrate into your society. The fear of shame and a need to "save face" are also particularly acute in Asian culture.

These forces can become particularly strong when imposed on a sexual-assault context.

"On the outside, Asian American women might look like we're successful, but the level of shame and isolation that comes with experiencing stigma is so deep, like mental health issues and dealing with violence," Sung Yeon Choimorrow, executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, told NBC News' Kimmy Yam.

"More Asian American women deal with violence than will let on, whether it's sexual violence or physical violence or emotional violence, because we are told not to talk about it, we are told not to disrupt, or we don't know where to go for resources."

Former Harvey Weinstein assistant Rowena Chiu on ITV's "Lorraine" in January 2020. Lorraine/YouTube

Chiu herself told a group of Weinstein accusers at a Los Angeles meeting before going public:

"It's not because this kind of thing [sexual assault] does not happen to Asian people, but I think certainly within the US we have a whole culture around a model minority that doesn't make a fuss, that doesn't speak up, that puts their head down and works really hard and doesn't cause waves."

This meeting was reported in "She Said," the book chronicling the #MeToo movement by New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey.

Speaking up about sexual assault in China is also incredibly rare, and feminists have been detained and accusers told to retract their statements to protect the man's reputation.

The words "Me Too" were censored on social media in the country, forcing people to convey their message in code.

But maybe Miller, Yang, and Chiu's stories will encourage other Asian women to speak out.

Miller told Shondaland her race might have "worked to my advantage" because it confronted stereotypes that Asians were submissive and would keep quiet about stories like this.

"I felt underestimated throughout the [court] process; maybe they saw me as differential or submissive," she told the website in September.

"But maybe, ultimately, that worked to my advantage because they thought they could get away with more, thinking that I was more soft-spoken rather than outspoken.

"But I know what I'm capable of and I was not going to let that happen."

As Rebecca Sun, a senior reporter at The Hollywood Reporter, tweeted Thursday: "What happened to Evelyn Yang is chilling and heartbreaking, and her courage in sharing her story will help countless others, particularly within the Asian community, where there is still so much silence around sexual assault."

"We don't know how many silent Asian voices are out there," Chiu later told NBC News.

Andrew Yang in Detroit, Michigan, in July 2019. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images

Andrew Yang's campaign did not respond to Insider's request for further comment on Evelyn's story, but sent the candidate's official statement: "I'm extraordinarily proud of Evelyn for telling her story, and my heart breaks every time I think of what she had to experience.

"I hope that Evelyn's story gives strength to those who have suffered and sends a clear message that our institutions must do more to protect and respond to women."

Yang, who has been a victim of racially-motivated bullying, told Insider's Anthony Fisher that as a candidate he is refraining from identity politics because it "serves to highlight differences and separate Americans from each other."

Read more:

Andrew Yang's wife, Evelyn, says she was sexually assaulted by her gynecologist while pregnant

96 HOURS ON THE TRAIL WITH ANDREW YANG: We got up close and personal with the 2020 campaign's most unlikely phenomenon

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