It’s Latino Heritage Month for Afro-Latinos too

As an Afro-Latino therapist, I often witness the mental health challenges of those that struggle to navigate multiple cultural identities. While it is glorious to be a blend of the diaspora, at times it can feel difficult for some to find themselves between the pressure to preserve a heritage and step into whatever society might deem more of value. I get it, I’ve been there. There is also a generational impact of these struggles. For those of us with parents or grandparents who immigrated, we often inherit their trauma without fully understanding it. There’s a lot of unspoken grief passed down from one generation to the next—their sacrifices, the pain they endured to give us a better life. We carry their stories with us—their survival, their loss—and sometimes that shows up in our own mental health without us even realizing it. It can manifest as anxiety, perfectionism, or the constant fear of failure because we feel we ‘owe it to them’ to succeed. And if we struggle, it can feel like we’re letting down generations of family, which only adds to our emotional and psychological load.