(The New Hood project of the Center for New York City Affairs continues a conversation about the causes and consequences of intergenerational trauma with a leading, Brooklyn-based social services innovator.) 

 The New Hood: How does the trauma that you're talking about manifest itself into policy problems that we see, whether it be in areas of criminal justice, education, housing, etcetera? 

 Beras-Monticciolo: The way the American Psychological Association defines trauma is as an emotional response to a terrible event such as an accident, a rape, or a natural disaster. However, it doesn't necessarily acknowledge that while a person may experience trauma as a response to any physical or emotional event, a person doesn't even have to physically be present at an event to experience that trauma. This goes back to epigenetics that says that trauma can be embedded into a person, such that they don't even have to be there physically to feel that sense of anxiety, that sense of depression and heaviness.  

 When you are exposed to the systemic issues that play out in a lot of our communities, all of this becomes cumulative and it starts to impact the developing brain of a child. This trauma that you're now interacting with on a regular basis starts to manifest itself and leads not only to health risks later in life – like smoking and drinking, overeating, hypertension, and potentially substance abuse – but it also leads to hopelessness, helplessness, and feeling devalued. Racism results in trauma that becomes internalized and that gets passed down intergenerationally. 

 When we start to experience that hopelessness, what do we try to do? We try to self-medicate. Some of our folks are engaging with different substances to improve or ameliorate their particular situation. Others may feel, ‘Well, nobody cares about me, so I'm gonna be angry with the world,’ and they choose a life that involves violence or gangs. We feel devalued.  

 Trauma is happening on a regular basis in our communities, which very often leads to adverse childhood experiences, which in turn oftentimes leads to behaviors and actions that then intersect with a punitive and racially biased criminal justice system. And that's just compounding the trauma. 

TNH: What role does public policy have to play in addressing the trauma and the issues that you just mentioned? 

 Beras-Monticciolo: Public policy needs to stop ignoring intergenerational trauma. We need to start advocating for legislation and policies that bring real substantive change to marginalized communities while simultaneously advocating for reform in the government agencies that have too often caused harm to our communities. Let's focus on acknowledging that intergenerational trauma is real and then let's allocate resources to addressing that trauma. Because if we don't, it will continue to compound onto itself.  

Simultaneously, let's address the inherent structural racism that exists within government agencies that regularly interact with our communities. We can't do one without the other. We have to make sure that we are allocating resources to address that intergenerational trauma while simultaneously trying to fix and address the systemic issues that continue to affect and cause harm to our families and our communities. 

TNH: What policy actions would you want the next Mayor of New York City and Speaker of the City Council to take and why? 

 Beras-Monticciolo: I would first say, ‘Please recognize the harm that has been done’ in a public statement. That's number one. Then let's invest in specific programming that can address intergenerational trauma in a really holistic way. If we just say, ‘Oh, let's ignore that for now and let's focus on just the carceral system or let's focus on just the educational system,’ then the trauma is still perpetuating itself. Let's really allocate resources to those programs that allow our families and communities to heal. That's the second order of business.  

 The third one is, let's look closely at our systems and processes and protocols, and let's evaluate using an equity lens to see whether this is equitable or not, whether or not harm is being caused. And if it is, then let's reevaluate. The only way we're going to be able to make a substantive change within our society is by doing all of those things in tandem. 

 What is also impacting my community is the fact that there is no inter-agency collaboration or communication. Everything is so siloed. We have to figure out a way of making sure that if we have City agencies doing duplicative work, or if they're causing even more trauma for the populations that they're serving, then we really need to evaluate whether or not those agencies really need to be functioning.  

 We need to rethink what the welfare system looks like, what child welfare looks like, what the workforce development system looks like. All of those things really need to be re-evaluated and reconfigured to end the harm they cause and have caused and to fulfill their actual mission of providing support and solutions for the populations they are meant to serve.  

A 2021 New York University Senior Leaders Fellow, Erasma Beras-Monticciolo is the co-founder and executive director of .”Power of Two, which works with families in Brownsville and the South Bronx. It aims, in her words, to “decolonize parenting so that families can raise liberated children.”

As New York City rebuilds through the pandemic, the next mayor and City Council will need to consider a comprehensive policy agenda that recognizes the historical collective traumas that Black and Latinx communities face. This article is part of an Urban Matters series bringing together perspectives on forming such a community healing agenda and building long-term strength, vitality, and wholeness for Black and Latinx New Yorkers.