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Intergenerational trauma refers to the passing down of the effects of a traumatic event from one generation to the next. This often affects recent immigrant families, particularly second-generation immigrants who face challenges such as bullying, abuse, fear of deportation, and discrimination. The struggles of second-generation immigrants are portrayed in literature like the short story "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan, which explores the conflict between cultural expectations and personal identity. The movie "Turning Red" also highlights generational trauma, as a Chinese-Canadian girl navigates her mother's high expectations and the pressure to conform. Similarly, the movie "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once" combines immigrant family dynamics with a mystical sci-fi plotline to address intergenerational trauma. These works shed light on the mental health issues faced by children of immigrants and the importance of breaking the cycle of trauma. When suffering confounds us, we need to ask ourselves whose feelings am I actually living? Mark Wolin. Hello, everybody. I am Charles, and with me I have Leila, Brianna, and Emma. We are all Georgia Tech students, and this is Tech Talks. In this episode, we will be looking at intergenerational trauma and how that's portrayed in different media forms, such as literature and modern movies. Hope you learn something and enjoy. First of all, what is intergenerational trauma? Intergenerational trauma is when the effects of a traumatic event on someone's life is passed down to their children and then to their children. Intergenerational trauma often affects recent immigrant families, and especially second generation immigrants, which are the children of immigrants. According to an article by Bridgewater State University, immigrant children often face bullying and abuse, live in fear of deportation and financial issues, and face discrimination on many levels. Second generation immigrants often have to carry the burden of trying to conform to American society while retaining the original culture of their parents. They often have to help their parents adapt to a new culture, as their parents often don't understand the customs of America, and often do not speak English. Leila, would you like to share us a story you've heard? This isn't my story to tell, but I've heard other people who've had to do taxes for their parents and fill out their tax forms because their parents don't often understand English or enough English to do important things like taxes. Thank you very much, Leila. Does anybody else have any personal stories that they'd like to share? Yeah, I'll go. Both of my parents are Salvadorians, so I've definitely had to help them with legal paperwork. And especially when it came to college applications, I couldn't really ask them for help on things like FAFSA because they didn't have any experience with any of it. Compared to my friends that had help from their parents, I had to do research on my own and figure it out, and it's difficult for someone my age to have to carry that responsibility on their own. The struggles of second-generation immigrants is portrayed in many works of literature, such as the short story, Two Kinds, by Amy Tan. So to summarize, Two Kinds was published in 1989, and it explores the complex relationships in a Chinese-American family. In the story, a mother flees from China and leaves her family behind. She comes to America where she believes that anyone can be successful and famous, and she also has a daughter. And over the years, she pushes her daughter to become a child prodigy and makes her do things that she has no interest in doing, like playing the piano. The daughter eventually hits a breaking point and defies her mother, and although she feels guilty for not living up to her mother's expectations of being the perfect, obedient child, she feels relieved because she can finally be herself. This story definitely conveys the relationships that a lot of second-generation children face in America, in which they're stuck between their parents' cultural expectations and their own more Americanized identities. Similarly to Jing Mei's brother, many of the people have had to flee from their home countries, so intergenerational mental health problems due to traumatic exposure are very prominent today. According to a report from Think Global Health, the children of Asian-Americans, Pacific Islanders, and Latinx immigrants face significantly higher rates of depression, anxiety, and PTSD. And these problems extend from more than just family pressures, but also financial barriers, legal status, language barriers, and more. Thank you for your analysis of Two Kinds. Does anybody have any personal stories relating to this book? I honestly saw a lot of myself in Jing Mei, because me and my sister, whenever we have family or even just anyone over, our parents are always making us do mini-concerts for our guests. They'd make us take out our instruments at the most inopportune times and make us show off, so that really made me feel like a trophy that was just being shown by my parents. So I definitely also had a lot of pressure to do different things, like play instruments like the violin, but it was less because my parents wanted to show me off to their friends or something, but more because they thought that I needed to know how to do a lot of different things in order to succeed in America. For example, with violin, they thought that it would be a good thing on my college applications that I had artistic talent. So my parents did push me a lot because they thought that was a standard for success in America. Thanks for the personal stories, and now, as we continue to explore the relationship between generations, let's shift over to a more modern narrative, the movie Turning Red. Turning Red is a 2022 Disney movie about a Chinese-Canadian girl named Mei Ling, who is just beginning her teenage years. She's in middle school. She wants to be a middle school girl who has crushes. She has an obsession with a boy band, but at the same time, she's also held to very high standards by her mom because her mom expects Mei Ling to succeed her in everything, and this is further exacerbated by the fact that their family has a blessing where they turn into threat pandas upon experiencing really large emissions. Her mom is especially afraid of that and what it's going to do to her daughter, so she tries to keep her near, but Mei Ling embraces the panda. This movie was especially famous for its portrayal of generational trauma because Mei Ling's mom, Ming, experienced a traumatic event in causing a rift between her mother and her because she wanted to marry her current husband, so she let her emotions manifest in the panda and ultimately that caused a strain in their relationship. As a result, Ming tries to keep her daughter close and puts all this pressure on her and unintentionally forgetting that Mei Ling is her own person. Mei Ling helps break that cycle of trauma. She helps her mother understand she is growing, she is becoming her own, and through that communication and through the scene where Mei Ling tells her mother and her child that it's okay, they finally reconcile and the cycle of their generational trauma is broken. Thanks for your analysis. I'm sure a lot of people can relate to Mei Ling's struggle. I relate in the sense that my parents were strict growing up, like many immigrant parents are, and compared to my friends that didn't have immigrant parents, there was a lot that I couldn't do, like have sleepovers, date, just go over to people's houses, go to concerts, stuff like that, and there were definitely more rules set and I had to make sure I was well-behaved everywhere I went, and it definitely caused a disconnect from my identity because I didn't feel like the typical American child, but I also didn't feel like the typical Salvadorian child either. Thanks for your personal story. Thanks for your personal story. We will now be moving on to our third piece of media relating to intergenerational trauma, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. Everything, Everywhere, All at Once is a movie made in 2022 that combines the story of an immigrant family with a mystical sci-fi plotline, and intergenerational trauma plays a big role in the character's development and the plot in this story. So, here's a basic summary of the plot. The story centers around a first-generation immigrant Chinese couple in America that runs a normal laundromat and have a rebellious teenage daughter called Joy, and at first in the story, they worry about mundane things like their taxes and an upcoming New Year's party, however, all of a sudden, the mother, Evelyn, needs to learn how to jump universes to try to stop her nihilist daughter Joy from another universe from destroying the universe with a bagel. However, she finds out that the evil version of Joy only wants to find the right version of Evelyn among the multiverse to agree to destroy themselves together, and eventually, Evelyn changes her mind and saves her, her daughter, and the universe. So, the theme of intergenerational trauma begins with a relationship between Evelyn and her dad. In a bunch of flashback scenes, we can see that her father is disapproving of Evelyn's choice in her husband and abandons her by allowing her to move to America alone. And later on, in her new life, her dad's constantly disapproving of her decisions, and Evelyn strives to make him happy. And Evelyn passes this trauma down to her daughter Joy by constantly disapproving of her choices and putting her down instead of loving and accepting her in order to try to appease her dad. And Joy responds violently by becoming a nihilist who finds no joy in any of the universes. However, in this story, we can see that they're both more similar than they realize, as they are both the victims to the same root trauma, which is represented by the fact that they are the only two who can see all the universes at once. Eventually, the cycle of generational trauma is broken with the help of an outside person who sees things with love. Throughout the violent tension between mother and daughter, the husband of Evelyn, Waymond, maintains a graceful patience and quiet understanding. He inspires Evelyn to be more understanding of her daughter and see that there is hope and love in each universe. However, breaking a cycle requires direct action from those involved. Later on in the story, Evelyn takes action by not letting Joy leave her like her father did, and telling her that she accepts her regardless of what Evelyn perceives as flaws. And in a fight scene before this, she directly tells her dad, I'm no longer willing to do to my daughter what you did to me. Overall, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once gives a very accurate picture of a modern immigrant family whose lives are clouded by intergenerational trauma and provides us with an inspiring story showing how this cycle is broken by love and patience. Thank you for your thorough examination of intergenerational trauma in Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. In this podcast, we discuss generational trauma, its effects on second-generation immigrants, and its betrayal in media. According to an article by PBS, people often connect better with and feel empowered by characters in media who represent them. By having these stories that betray their struggles, second-generation immigrants can see that they aren't alone in their struggles and may find ways to break out of their own trauma cycles. Gen Z is normalizing therapy, advocating for mental health, and has a drive for self-expression. So there is more hope than ever that these difficult cycles will eventually be broken. Don't forget, it is never too late to break the cycle of generational trauma. It all starts with you. Thank you for listening, and have a great day. you