Inherited Shame in Immigrant Families: Racism, War and the Fear of Taking Up Space

This article explores how racism, war and intergenerational trauma can shape a sense of shame around taking up space, particularly for children of immigrants. It considers how inherited survival patterns influence visibility, identity and self-expression - and how these patterns can begin to change. Reference to murder.

There are many wonderful aspects of being self-employed. Your time is your own, and subsequently you have more time for self-care. No one tells you what to do. I can take a nap, go to the gym, bake chocolate tahini cookies or watch a true crime documentary, all in the middle of the day if I don’t have clients.

The one aspect I don’t particularly enjoy -  but accept as a necessary evil in a career that exchanges time for money -  is marketing.

Don’t get me wrong, I quite enjoy the creativity of writing blog pieces or creating a carousel post on Instagram. But what puts utter dread into every cell of my being (and perhaps even the cilia of my nostrils) is coming onto camera and talking.

I didn’t realise how much I dreaded public speaking -  especially when it carries the possibility of judgement - until I came face to face with a ring light and my back camera.

It sent me down a comparison-itis rabbit hole. There are so many therapy accounts on Instagram with therapists who seem to have no problem coming onto camera and speaking. Sure, some of them might be feeling nervous on the inside, but it doesn’t show. Some of them even look downright comfortable taking space.

And most of them -  with the exception of a few - were not therapists of colour.

That observation made me pause and reflect.

Yes, there are universal elements at play: perfectionism, people-pleasing, self-doubt, the inner critic. I’ll come to those in a later post. But I began to wonder whether there was something else about taking space and being a person of colour that didn’t always naturally align.

I’m referring particularly to second-generation immigrants - people born in one country with at least one parent originating from another. Why are so many of us withdrawn when it comes to showing up and being seen as we are?

Interestingly, when I do see therapists of colour showing up online - again, with a few exceptions -  it can sometimes feel almost exaggerated. As though performing. Masking. Afraid to bring their true, authentic selves.

And maybe that’s part of it.

When our parents came over from their respective countries, there were countless obstacles that meant being fully themselves was risky.

I remember being called a “Paki” in primary school. By a person of colour no less. Goodness knows the messages of internalised racism that child’s parents were giving him. If that had been my experience as a child, my parents would have dealt with far worse arriving here in the 80s. They looked different. They sounded different. And many immigrants carried the aromas of home cooking on their clothes - beautiful, familiar smells that marked them out as “other” in a predominantly white society.

When you are already dealing with prejudice, racial discrimination and abuse, it is not safe to be loud, proud and expansive.

That’s why many communities formed in pockets across the country. Perhaps there, they could exhale. Perhaps there, they could be expressive, cultural, themselves.

But in areas where their ethnicity wasn’t mirrored, staying safe often meant keeping your head down and below the parapet (preferably in a book). Study hard. Go to university. Get a good job. Make money. Survive by being silent.

Wanted to go to performing arts school as a millennial adult child of an immigrant? Forget it - a double sitting duck: too visible and not earning any money.

Survival was everything to our parents, especially when they were navigating oppression, suppression, being overlooked for promotions, enduring microaggressions and sometimes outright racism.

So when we, their children, feel shame around taking up space - speaking loudly, pursuing creative careers, showing up visibly online - it may not simply be low confidence.

It may be inherited caution.

Blending in once meant safety. Visibility carried risk.

And when that message is absorbed early enough, it doesn’t disappear just because we live in a different era.

The Unspoken Shame Around War

For our parents, it was not only the strange, foreign land they were entering that carried trauma, but also the grief and violence of the home they were leaving behind. My parents were fortunate enough to be given study visas to come to the UK from Sri Lanka before the Sri Lankan Civil War (1983–2009) even began.

However, when my Amma was pregnant with me in the mid-eighties, her younger brother was brutally murdered by the LTTE (a Tamil rebel group seeking an independent state in the north of Sri Lanka). He was stabbed multiple times in front of his wife and children.

Our family is Tamil, but my uncle had Sinhalese friends and was suspected of saying too much to the “other side”. Whatever the circumstances, he did not deserve to die, and certainly not in the way that he did. This was not a distant gunshot from afar. It was a deeply personal act of violence that shattered a family.

Is it any wonder that the internalised messages become: stay small, don’t speak too loudly, don’t associate with the wrong people, keep your head down and focus on survival.

For families who have lived through the trauma of war, taking up space can feel dangerous. Being visible, outspoken, or connected to the “wrong” people once carried real consequences. The phrase “keep your head below the parapet” was not simply metaphorical advice; it was a strategy for staying alive.

When these survival messages are passed down to the next generation, they can quietly shape how safe it feels to be seen, heard, or fully ourselves.

Epigenetics

Some of these messages are spoken and made explicit to us. Others are not.

The emerging field of epigenetics explores how environmental stress and trauma can influence the way our genes are expressed. While the DNA structure itself may remain unchanged, the experiences of previous generations can affect how our bodies respond to stress.

Mark Wolynn, in It Didn’t Start With You, writes that “epigenetic changes biologically prepare us to cope with the trauma that our parents experienced.”

In other words, the body may carry an echo of what earlier generations endured.

When our parents lived through racism, displacement, violence, or the threat of war, their nervous systems adapted in order to survive. Hyper-vigilance, caution, and emotional restraint were often necessary.

If those survival responses were strong enough, they can influence the emotional patterns that are passed down to us.

What we sometimes experience as shame around taking up space may not be a personality trait. It may be the inheritance of a nervous system that once learned that staying small was the safest way to live.

The good news is that inherited patterns are not permanent. With awareness, reflection, and compassionate work, we can begin to question the messages we were given about safety, visibility, and belonging.
Taking up space may once have been dangerous for our families. But it does not have to remain so for us.