The inheritance we don’t talk about
Breaking the silence in immigrant families
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Book club on June 30 at 8pm ET! We are going to be discussing ‘Drinking from Graveyard Wells’ by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu. Link will be sent day of.
In my childhood home, we didn’t talk about sadness. Or anxiety. Or fear. If you were overwhelmed, you took a nap. If you were hurting, you kept moving. We called it strength. We never called it silence.
For many of us raised in immigrant families, mental health wasn't a topic we grew up speaking about — not because it didn’t exist, but because naming it would have made it real. We come from a long line of people who survived war, migration, poverty, displacement. Silence was their survival tool. Stoicism became a coping skill. Talking about what hurt wasn't always an option… it was often a risk. A luxury. A threat to the stability they worked so hard to build or needed to build.
For many immigrant families, emotional suppression wasn’t (and isn’t) a flaw — it’s a strategy. The focus is clear: survive, adapt, keep going. There’s no room for unraveling.
Many of our parents — and let’s be honest, their parents — came from environments where talking about mental health didn’t just lack language; it lacked safety. Vulnerability could be weaponized. Emotions could be inconvenient. Asking for help might bring shame, not support.
In their world:
Crying was something you did alone, if at all.
Depression wasn’t depression — it was laziness or spiritual weakness.
Anxiety was being "dramatic” or “too sensitive.”
Trauma was “just life.”
Rest was weakness and there were real-life consequences for slowing down
Vulnerability could get you hurt
Emotions weren’t useful or practical in survival mode
Therapy wasn’t a resource — it was a threat to privacy or dignity and could bring on shame
And so, love became practical. It sounded like:
“Did you eat?”
“We sacrificed so much for you.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Be strong.”
“It could be worse.”
These aren’t just dismissals. They’re translations of care in a language that doesn’t always allow emotional fluency.
They taught us to hold it in, not because they didn’t care — but because they didn’t know what it meant to let it out.
Even more, they didn’t know how to handle emotional expression. I am reminded of how much my parents wanted to focus on the next thing when I hit rock bottom in my 20s. I was severely depressed after a traumatic experience and my parents had no idea how to help me. It affected me, and thankfully, I did get the support I needed later (years later!), but now looking back I can see that they worried they failed me in some way. That their lack of access to their emotions prevented them from helping me access mine.
People can only go as deep with us as they can go with ourselves. We cannot expect them to do more for us than they can even do for themselves. It’s such a harsh pill to swallow.
And let’s be clear: Even in silence, there was and is love. Packed lunches. Working two jobs. Checking in on our grades. Waving at the end of the driveway. Cut fruit. Acts of service. Calling to make sure you made it safe. Buying you practical things to keep you safe. These were their ways of saying “I care,” even when words failed. Their silence was full of meaning — just not always the kind we needed.
So, many of us inherit silence.
We learned early on that some emotions didn’t belong in the room. That disappointment had to be hidden. That asking for emotional support might sound ungrateful. And that our sadness was always smaller than their struggle.
We became “low-maintenance” children who didn’t ask for much
We confused emotional numbness with being strong.
We learned to translate our pain into productivity, achievement, or silence.
We held our parents’ pain in one hand and our own in the other—and didn’t speak of either.
We felt guilty for struggling, because “they had it so much worse.”
And now, as adults, we often carry that emotional inheritance like it’s ours to keep. It shows up in:
Our relationships where we don’t know how to ask for what we need.
The constant fear of being a burden.
The belief that we have to earn rest, love, or softness.
Having difficulty sitting still with discomfort without needing to “fix” it.
The deep, unnamed grief for the connection we never got to have.
Changing the subject when someone asks how we really are
Apologizing for crying, even when you’re alone.
We carry these patterns quietly, like heirlooms. Not because they’re true or precious, but because they were modeled. Passed down. Baked into love.
Reflection: What are some other ways the learned silence has impacted your life today?
Silence vs Protection
Our immigrant elders didn’t always (and still may not) have the language but they had the instinct to protect us — even if that protection looked like silence.
In many of our families, silence may not have always been about avoidance. At times, it may have been about love disguised as protection. Our parents didn’t want us to worry so they didn’t tell us everything. They didn’t want us to carry what they were already holding so they used toxic positivity as a way to cope. And often, they didn’t know how to name their own emotions, let alone help us name ours.
To them, not talking was shielding. Not feeling was coping. Carrying on without acknowledgment was resilience.
And while that kind of love did keep us safe in some ways, it also came at a cost — like emotional distance, loneliness, feeling misunderstood in the very place we were supposed to feel seen.
Their silence was love — but it wasn’t always care. And now, we’re learning to choose both.
Breaking the silence
Speaking the truth in a (figurative or literal) language your family never used feels like rebellion. But sometimes, rebellion is how healing begins. When we finally start to name our mental health struggles — whether in therapy, conversations, or hidden journal pages — we’re not just healing ourselves. We’re disrupting generations of emotional patterns.
And it’s not always easy.
Because breaking the silence often brings:
Guilt for airing “private” family struggles
Pushback: “Why are you being so dramatic?” “That’s not how it happened.”
Distance and feeling like a stranger in your own home, simply for speaking honestly
Grief for the version of your childhood you now understand more clearly — and differently.
Sometimes it feels like you’re betraying your family. Other times, it feels like you’re betraying your culture. But you’re not. You’re honoring the part of you that deserves to be whole. And in many ways, you’re doing the emotional work they never had the space or language to do.
I know it can feel like a burden to be the one doing the work to break cycles, but it’s also a privilege and you may be the first one who can do this work.
So remember: We may have inherited silence — but we don’t have to pass it on.
Healing doesn’t always look like confrontation or big conversations. Sometimes it looks like learning how to feel without guilt. How to rest without shame. How to speak without fear.
We get to choose a different inheritance.
We get to teach our bodies that safety doesn’t require silence. We get to offer our future children the emotional vocabulary we never had. We get to build bridges back to our families — not through perfection, but through compassion and connection. And most importantly, we get to reimagine love as something that holds truth, not just protection.
You don’t have to have all the answers. You don’t have to fix what came before you. But you can choose to feel. To name. To soften. And that, in itself, is radical.
Reflection: What is one thing you wish had been said out loud in your childhood home? And what is one truth you can say to yourself now, even if no one else is ready to hear it?
*Disclaimer: Culturally Enough. is not therapy, a mental health service, nor is it a substitute for mental health services of any kind. I am not showing up in this space as your therapist — I am showing up here as a curiosity-driven writer, peer, and a human. If you are looking for therapy, please consult with your local mental health resources.
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