"The Tidal Wave of the Past:" Intergenerational Trauma

Even though memoirs are expected to be centered around one person’s—the author’s—memories, Castillo’s memoir includes many short chapters that contain stories about multiple generations of his family. Castillo’s deep ties to his family’s past reflect the idea of intergenerational trauma—the theory that trauma can be passed on through multiple generations of families,communities, or cultures. Even as Castillo is grappling with his own immigration status, he also carries the weight of the trauma that the border and the immigration system has caused his family. Furthermore, he implies that his own story cannot be separated from his family’s story, as his parent’s struggles have permanently impacted the way he moves through the world.

               In the very first paragraph, before he describes the ICE raid on his home, Castillo suggests that many of his behaviors are inherited, as they seem to come naturally to him. He writes that in some moments, even if he had never experienced them before, “something inside [him] knew exactly what to do… as if I had been practicing for the Olympics” (1). His simile suggests automatic, repetitive motion, but he does not attribute it to instinct. Rather, he insists that “[it] was memory,” and that he was “tapping into an inheritance that up

until that moment [he] didn’t know he had” (1). Castillo points to his “inheritance” of trauma in the rest of this section of the memoir by sharing the experiences of his grandmother, mother, and father in Mexico, on the border, and in the United States. He suggests that due to their trauma, his body is wired to react in a certain way.

               Furthermore, since he imagines his memories as being older than his body, he thinks of his life not as a series of events that are happening for the first time, but as a continuous experience of déjà vu. He writes that, “[in] this way life appeared monotonous, nothing was a surprise, but my body couldn’t stop shaking,” introducing the reader to his constant state of anxiety and dread—the fact that he is always anticipating a disaster (1). Instead of seeing the past and the future as separate, he suggests that the past has the potential to affect the present. He positions himself as the border between the two, comparing his body to a “small breakwater holding back the past” (1).

How does Castillo relate his body to his family’s intergenerational trauma?

Do you think it is possible for Castillo to heal/recover from his trauma?