Before You Had the Words: Silence, Survival, and the Asian American Experience
“When it comes to inheriting aspects of historical trauma and intergenerational patterns, what remains unspoken can be just as powerful as what’s openly shared.”
from Patterns that Remain by Stacey Litam
You notice it in small moments. When your name is mispronounced, and it doesn’t feel worth correcting again, or when you choose an American name to spare the trouble. When obedience seems like the “right” and only way to show that you’re grateful. When the words you want to share are swallowed, even if it hurts. When it feels easier, somehow, to carry it alone.
For many Asian Americans, this reality of silence is not by accident or a personal flaw. Our emotional and behavioral patterns are not only mirrored by parents and culture, but also inherited from the roots of safety. In many Asian American families, the struggles of the past are often unnamed or minimized, passed through silence, stories, or the nature of the family dynamics. If you’re a child from an immigrant family, your experience as a minority can often come with unspoken struggles of racism, minimization, and the belief that it’s best to ignore it and push through – the model minority myth.
With many family lineages shaped by war, displacement, and colonization, silence and assimilation were often the safest strategies for survival. Going against the grain could have cost everything – from livelihoods, belonging to the community, and sometimes lives. What looks like emotional distance from elders like our parents and community aunties and uncles, perhaps even coldness, at its root is protection. A survivalist strategy.
The wisdom does not just live in stories. Research has found that trauma can alter gene expression, so the trauma can be passed down through generations. When the body shows up with constant scanning of your environment, shutdown, anger, or difficulty accessing emotions, it is not a weakness. It is an adaptation, and your nervous system is doing its job to keep you safe.
Why does this matter? Our bodies can influence the stories we tell ourselves. Among the Asian American diaspora, or other children of immigrant families, calling out early experiences as “trauma” can be disrespectful to parents who provided the security they never had. The clash between collectivist homes and an individualistic society can pose additional challenges in reclaiming your voice. Speaking up, setting boundaries, and practicing vulnerability in safe settings can be terrifying, and yet, transformative. The survival scripts that have been passed down were not meant for you to carry. Yet, we don’t have to continue to carry the burdens of silence, and we don’t have to unpack it alone.
Processing the remnants of intergenerational trauma is not about blaming or rejecting our ethnic heritage or our parents. While blaming may show up at moments, it is not the goal of processing trauma, yet it is still important to recognize which people and systems are truly responsible for the wounds you still carry today. The question is, how do we honor the family’s survival story and choose which scripts we allow to continue?
Silence was necessary in the past – it kept your family alive, allowing you to be here today. But how do we teach our bodies that we are not in the same danger as our parents or grandparents lived under? How do we reteach our nervous system to recognize comfort versus safety? Therapy is one avenue to reckon with what was never named and feel in a way that was never allowed, to write a different story. For you, and the generations that follow.
Seek an Asian American Therapist in Pennsylvania or New Jersey
If you are ready to seek therapy, we hope you’ll consider Mango Tree Counseling and Consulting. Our New Jersey– and Pennsylvania–based therapy practice has a community of clinicians from diverse backgrounds to provide trauma-informed, culturally sensitive care. Our goal is to help you feel empowered to reclaim your voice and sit with you through the discomfort, the laughter, the grief, and everything in between. Schedule a consultation with us here!
Not in Pennsylvania or New Jersey?
While our clinicians are licensed in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Mango Tree Counseling and Consulting seeks to help build places for connection with the AANHPI community that are available to everyone! See our Free Group programs and find one that resonates with you. We’d love to see you there!
Stephanie Liu
Mango Tree Counseling and Consulting Graduate Student Intern Psychotherapist