Where Race and Caste Collide in Trauma Recovery

Key points

The intersections of anti-Black racism and caste trauma require further exploration in decolonial praxis.

Interwoven traumas demand a more expansive discourse within global mental health.

Race and caste trauma recovery must focus on regaining emotional sovereignty on a collective scale.

In the United States, the language of race is always close to the surface—coded in ZIP codes, school districts, traffic stops, and sentencing disparities. But caste walks in differently. It is quieter, more camouflaged, wrapped in euphemisms like “merit,” “culture,” “upbringing,” or “respectability.” It is dressed up in family WhatsApp threads and diaspora fundraisers. It glides through South Asian communities without ever needing to name itself.

But when caste and anti-Black racism collid