Retracing Our Paths - Remembering Our Origins
Photo by Marina Leonova
By Sterling M. Hawkins, MSW, LCSW-C, LICSW
The following Essays were inspired by author Nikole Hannah-Jones and her book titled The 1619 Project. The 1619 Project published in 2021 (Random House, LLC, NY) is a collection of essays edited by Prof. Jones in collaboration with the New York Times. The book asserts that American history began in 1619 with the arrival of the White Lion, the first ship of enslaved Africans one year before the Mayflower arrived. The book argues that American democracy and wealth of the nation were largely built by enslaved Black Americans. But that this demographic in many ways is excluded from American history and remains suppressed due to racist institutions that persist from slavery.
These essays will attempt to go deeper into the fabric of certain principles of entitlement embodied in the Declaration of Independence that were denied people of color and the fallout from this failure in several key themes: Dispossession, Home, Subsistence, Profit, and Belief
What Do These Essays Have To Do With Mental Health?
Each essay will explore the concept of Intergenerational Trauma and recount deeply distressing and disturbing experiences documented throughout our history. While some may say that these experiences are now past they fail to see the present vestiges each has rooted in ancestral burdens that we who now live continue to carry. By identifying these burdens, we can begin the dialog and heal. The following Five Topic areas and their definitions will be used to explore Intergenerational Trauma in what otherwise may be mistaken as unrelated outcomes or occurrences of factors removed from the enslavement.
D I S P O S S E S S I O N
Persons who are forcibly displaced from their homeland are exposed to various stressors that impact their mental health and physical well-being before their migration and after their settlement and reintegration.
H O M E
The place where we reside or spend the majority of our time. It is a physical and geographical space. It’s also the tangible feeling you get from location, a sense of peace and joy from an environment, from loved ones where everyone knows they are welcome. The true meaning of home is diverse. However, what remains the same for everyone is that we desire to experience comfort and safety for it to be called such.
S U B S I S T E N C E
The action or fact of maintaining or supporting oneself at a minimum level requires that individuals be given the least amount of resources and materials possible, just enough to ensure their survival. Historically, people of color have been denied the resources and materials to live without the threat of poverty, disease, and death.
P R O F I T
The ability to obtain a financial advantage or benefit from labor or investment. For many people of color profit was denied or elusive at best. The effects of slavery and other forms of injustice have resulted in extreme income inequities designed to limit and remove the potential to make a better life for oneself.
B E L I E F
For many, religious and spiritual practices are key to understanding, recovering, and healing from trauma. Some faith traditions of Indigenous groups resemble only what could be classified as a preservative factor to insulate them and their communities from division and give meaning to life by offering solutions and reducing social isolation while providing a sense of identity, collective confidence, and transcendent hope amidst oppressive and inhumane conditions.
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I N T E R G E N E R A T I O N A L T R A U M A
What Is Intergenerational Trauma?
Intergenerational Trauma is a theory that explains decades of generational conflict in households, families, and communities. It is transferred from a historical event with oppressive or traumatic repercussions to successive generations. People who suffer from Intergenerational Trauma may experience behavioral, and psychological symptoms related to the trauma that preceding generations have gone through, not limited to just parents or grandparents.
How was Intergenerational Trauma discovered?
Genetics is the study of genes—the units of a person’s genetic code, made from DNA. The term “epigenetics” originated with Conrad Waddington (1905–1975) a biologist and geneticist who coined the term “epigenetics” to define the branch of biology that studies the causal interactions between genes and the traits that they influence. Epigenetics focuses on physical changes that affect how genes are “expressed”. (Felsenfeld 2014)
Each person's DNA lays the groundwork for developing physical and psychological characteristics—providing complex instructions for creating proteins and other molecules. However, how these instructions are used can be modified by various factors. These modifications occur naturally and help to steer development. For example, they enable cells in the brain in other parts of the body to perform specialized roles based on the same underlying genetic code. However, the epigenome is also susceptible to influence by exposure to toxins and other environmental factors.
Epigenetic changes may be caused by health-related factors such as diet, exercise, smoking, drug use, and early stress. For example, research suggests that prenatal exposure to famine may reduce the methylation of a gene associated with growth. Differences in DNA methylation have also been explored in individuals who have experienced other forms of early-life adversity, such as childhood trauma. Such epigenetic differences, if indeed caused by harsh early experiences, could potentially play a role in explaining increased vulnerability to physical and mental illness. (Psychology Today 2024)
On the simplest level, the concept of intergenerational trauma acknowledges that exposure to extremely adverse events impacts individuals to such a great extent that their offspring find themselves grappling with their parents’ post‐traumatic state. A more recent and provocative claim is that the experience of trauma – or more accurately the effect of that experience – is “passed” somehow from one generation to the next through non‐genomic, possibly epigenetic mechanisms affecting DNA function or gene transcription. (Yehuda -Lerner 2018)
The belief that the experience of parents and their ancestors influence future generations is well documented. History is taught, past down, and preserved through the witnesses and survivors of communal trauma, such as genocide and death. Cultural memory is conveyed through rituals, memorials, museums, the arts, and anniversaries. Intergenerational or Cultural trauma occurs “when members of a collectivity feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their future identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways.” (Lehrner and Yehuda, 2018 as cited in Alexander, 2004)
In the case of the Holocaust, (1933- 1945) many members of the targeted community felt it was vital to demonstrate that the Nazis had failed in their agenda to destroy the Jewish community and that living well was the best revenge. After all, Jews had a long history of surviving oppression, and the Holocaust provided another instance not only of their victimization but also of their resilience. (Lehrner and Yehuda 2018)
“The population of Holocaust survivors was relatively unique in that the entire religious group was targeted, regardless of sex, age, temperament, or other risk factors, and the Holocaust ended after the war and so could be chronologically bounded. Despite the dispersion of survivors, they tended to settle in Jewish communities in the United States and Israel and could thus be identified and recruited for study. Furthermore, the second generation was composed of adults who were interested in research questions about intergenerational transmission of trauma effects and of age to consent and participate in such research. A research literature followed, chasing questions of whether and how a trauma not directly experienced may have had intergenerational influences, affecting the development of second and even third generations of offspring.” (Lerner and Yehuda 2018)
Another evidence of intergenerational trauma occurred when tens of thousands of people on September 11th, 2001 were directly exposed to the World Trade Center attack. There were documented approximately 1,700 pregnant women. Some of these women as a result of their exposure developed PTSD, involving trouble sleeping, nightmares, becoming easily startled or frightened, irritability, and aggression. Some of the children of these pregnant women exhibit symptoms that their mothers experienced on that day. 38 of these women who were at or near the World Trade Center at the time participated in a research study where saliva samples were taken and measured for the stress hormone cortisol. Researchers found that those women who had developed PTSD following exposure to the attacks had significantly lower levels of cortisol in their saliva than those who were similarly exposed but did not develop PTSD. About a year later, the researchers measured cortisol levels in the children and found that those born to women who had developed PTSD had lower levels of the hormone than the others. It was also observed that reduced cortisol levels were most apparent in those children whose mothers were in the third trimester of pregnancy when they were exposed to the attack. (Costandi 2018)
It is believed that “Adverse experiences may influence the next generation through multiple pathways. The most apparent route runs through parental behavior, but influences during gestation and even changes in eggs and sperm may also play a role. And all these channels seem to involve epigenetics: alterations in the way that genes function. Epigenetics potentially explains why the effects of trauma may endure long after the immediate threat is gone, and it is also implicated in the diverse pathways by which trauma is transmitted to future generations.” (Yehuda 2022)
Why is the topic of Intergenerational Trauma important?
Depression among people of color (African American, Latinx, and Indigenous groups) who have experienced discrimination are more likely to suffer from depression. Their symptoms occur with greater frequency, duration, and severity when compared with White Americans. Moreover, African Americans are less likely to receive mental health treatment than their White counterparts. These inequities are often linked to social, economic, and environmental determinants such as low income, under-resourced educational opportunities, inadequate housing, and insufficient access to quality mental health treatment. (Am Journal of Psychiatry 2022)
Identifying and understanding these risk factors particularly their impact on successive generations requires accounting for structural racism that is routinely experienced by racially and ethnically minoritized individuals.
Cumulative trauma is a term that is used to explain syndromes that result from repeated injury or are aggravated by repetitive insults. Traumatic experiences stemming directly from structural racism represent the failure of a trusted entity (institutions, society, or the government) to protect one from harm. (Am Journal of Psychiatry 2022)
Traumatic experiences can take many forms. Intergenerational trauma which stems from historical trauma by oppression related to culture, race, or ethnicity transcends multiple generations. Not only for survivors but also for descendants not yet born. Researchers now recognize that circumstances that can lead to intergenerational trauma include multiple causes that have their origin in:
colonization
enslavement, systemic racism, discrimination
loss of language, culture, and traditions,
separation of children from family members
war
famine and natural disasters
global or national crisis, like the Great Depression or the Covid-19 Pandemic
genocide
long-term financial hardship or poverty
(Raypole 2022)
The physical and psychological effects of one or more of these causes will directly impact what persons believe about themselves, others, and their social environment. The effects of intergenerational trauma can be lifelong and require that those who are experiencing symptoms linked to intergenerational trauma, develop coping skills and sources of support to begin to heal. It also requires that mental health providers who treat clients who suffer from mental illness become trauma-informed and knowledgeable about sources of trauma and the diverse influence it has on both the individual and collective experiences of marginalized groups.
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References:
Alexander, Jeffrey C.. "Chapter 1. Toward a Theory of Cultural Trauma". Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004, pp. 1-30. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520936768-002
Costandi, Mo. 2018. “Pregnant 9/11 Survivors Transmitted Trauma to Their Children.” The Guardian, February 14, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2011/sep/09/pregnant-911-survivors-transmitted-trauma.
Fesenfeld, G. (2014) A Brief History of Epigenetics. Cold Spring Harbor Biol. v.6, PubMed Central. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3941222/
Hankerson, Sidney H., Nathalie Moise, Diane Wilson, Bernadine Y. Waller, Kimberly T. Arnold, Cristiane Duarte, Claudia Lugo-Candelas, et al. 2022. “The Intergenerational Impact of Structural Racism and Cumulative Trauma on Depression.” the American Journal of Psychiatry 179 (6): 434–40. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.21101000.
Psychology Today (2024) Epigenetics https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/epigenetics
Raypole, Crystal. 2022. “Understanding Intergenerational Trauma and Its Effects.” Healthline. April 20, 2022. https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/intergenerational-trauma#impact.
Yehuda, Rachel, and Amy Lehrner. 2018. “Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma Effects: Putative Role of Epigenetic Mechanisms.” World Psychiatry/World Psychiatry 17 (3): 243–57. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20568.
Yehuda, Rachel. 2024. “How Parents’ Trauma Leaves Biological Traces in Children.” Scientific American, February 20, 2024. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-parents-rsquo-trauma-leaves-biological-traces-in-children/
—. 2022f. “The Intergenerational Impact of Structural Racism and Cumulative Trauma on Depression.” the American Journal of Psychiatry 179 (6): 434–40. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.21101000.