Inheriting our ancestors' pain: intergenerational trauma in multicultural families

Daniel grew up in a house full of care. His immigrant parents worked long hours, provided for him, and encouraged him, making sure he never went without. Yet their own stories: childhoods, struggles, even how they arrived in Australia; these were rarely spoken. Love was obvious, but history stayed quiet.

It wasn’t silence about the facts. Daniel knew where his family came from, why they left. The silence was about the feelings: fear carried over from war, grief over leaving home, and the pressure that survival placed on every decision. These emotions weren’t spoken, but they were in the room.

Across Asia, families escaped war, imperialism, upheaval, and repression. Across Europe, people left the wreckage of World War II, displaced by conflict and looking for opportunity in new lands. In the Middle East, civil wars and sectarian violence forced families to start again far from home. These weren’t just migrations, they were displacements; ruptures that forced people to rebuild from scratch. This is the first part of the pattern: the shock.

Then comes the second part: the inheritance. Later generations grow up in the aftershocks. They help bridge cultures like translating at the doctor’s office, explaining school notes, guiding parents through unfamiliar systems. At the same time, they absorb what their parents don’t say: the pressure to succeed, the caution, the reminder that security can vanish. Psychologists call this intergenerational trauma. 

Impacts of generational trauma

Research shows that trauma doesn’t vanish just because it isn’t spoken. In The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk explains that the body stores those experiences. People may remain on high alert, struggle with sleep, or react strongly to small stresses. Even when parents believe they are protecting their children, kids still notice the vigilance, the tension in the home, and the sense that safety can be fragile or temporary.

A recent systematic review published in BMC Psychology (July 2025) looked at studies of second-generation descendants of trauma survivors. It found signs of both biological and emotional inheritance. Some children showed changes in how their bodies regulate stress, while others reported higher anxiety or mistrust. Going back a little further, a research paper on epigenetics by the International Journal of Molecular Science (March 2025) highlighted changes in stress-related genes that regulate cortisol and stress response, indicating trauma can literally be written into biology. While individual studies may show some varied findings, the overall picture is clear: trauma can echo beyond the people who lived it directly.

Daniel once asked his mother why she never shared more. She snappily quipped, “You never asked.” A short answer but revealing. In today’s world, we talk about stress and mental health more freely. But in many migrant households, silence stayed. Perhaps from discomfort, language barriers, or the wish to protect.

What unspoken experiences shaped your family? How do these echo previous trauma or show up in the way you live today? In the next post, we’ll look at how these inherited patterns influence children’s emotions, relationships, and sense of identity, and why challenges often surface even without the original story being told.