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Recently, I came across a headline titled "The Rise of the 'Trauma Essay' in College Applications." Clicking on the link sent me to a TEDx Talk given by Tina Yong, a political science major at the University of British Columbia. In it she describes what it was like growing up the only Asian kid in her grade at a school in Canada. "I got teased for my broken English, Asian features and funny smelling ethnic lunches." Yong goes on to (sarcastically) say, "But don’t feel bad. Through the magical healing powers of extracurricular activities and pure perseverance I stand before you today, a new woman: healthy, healed and extremely employable." It’s clear that she doesn’t believe what she’s said. Her point is that this is the narrative pushed on and repeated by children of immigrants to gain "sympathy points," as she puts it, when writing college application essays.
Yong touches on something important here, and something that should not be quickly dismissed. All students—immigrant or not—are encouraged by college essay prompts and guidance counselors to write about their deepest traumas, and rewarded for showing how they overcame the death of a loved one, a chronic illness, or a racist encounter. The goal is to be "just honest enough to seem real, but not so unfiltered that it creates discomfort." As if the process of applying to college isn’t stressful enough, Yong says, students must also relive their trauma—often before they’re ready. Additionally, the constraints of the essay minimize these experiences: In 500 words or less, please describe your suffering. Students feel forced to turn their pain into progress and to make their trauma marketable. For Yong, this is "incredibly harmful to the storyteller" and indicative of our overarching tendency to "tokenize oppressed people."
If what she describes is in fact happening, on a small or grand scale, it is both an unfair admissions practice and perhaps also damaging to students. Yong states that students are more than the sum of their bad experiences and I couldn’t agree more.
I’m also not entirely convinced that her argument gets to the heart of the issue.
According to the psychology manual DSM-5, trauma requires "actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence." My intent isn’t to discount or downplay Yong’s (or anyone else’s) experience. The operative words here are "serious injury"—who’s to say what qualifies?
Not me. I’m a white guy who was born in America. This is the part where I’m supposed to say a bunch of words to make sure you know that I’m an ally, part of the solution, one of the good ones. I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to argue that trauma, not the DSM’s trauma, but in the way it’s more commonly used, is one of the few things that all humans have in common. We know that to be human is to suffer. The real question, and the subject of many college essays, job interviews, and novels, is: what is one supposed to do with that knowledge?
I can understand Yong’s argument that high schoolers might not yet be equipped to confront the depths of their suffering. There was a lot that I didn’t know about the world at that age. But how do you know if or when you’re ready? That’s more difficult to say.
At times Yong’s speech felt like another instance of "bubble-wrapping" our children—reminiscent of the well-intentioned helicopter parent, who refuses to let their kid out of sight for fear they’ll be abducted. By telling students that they aren’t ready or strong enough to process the harsh realities of the world, are we creating a self-fulfilling prophecy? Some have argued this is exactly what we’re doing (see here and here).
My training is in public health. One of the least effective ways to help someone get well is to remove hope. I fear that this is one potential takeaway from Yong’s lecture. She claims that telling students that they should turn a negative experience into a positive one is not only unhelpful, it’s "toxic positivity." Adding, "Sometimes it's just a sucky thing that really sucks."
This reveals something deeper. Universities may be "appropriating trauma," but as a society we are obsessed with victimhood.
This point has been made by several researchers (see here and here). One metanalysis found that this is part of a decades-long trend in which young people have increasingly perceived themselves as victims, powerless to change their circumstances. It seems that universities rewarding trauma essays is just the tip of the iceberg. More people and more groups now believe themselves to be victims. At school, at work, and online we use our victimhood to compete, to prove that we’ve had it worse. Psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman has said that victimhood is "rewarded now more than it’s ever been in the history of humanity." This might explain why so many of us seem eager to be victims, perpetuating this cycle. This is both dangerous and damaging.
Extensive research shows that possessing a victimhood mentality is one of the top inhibitors of well-being. If we see ourselves as victims, then, we should do everything we can to alter this perception. Dr. Kaufman notes that if you can’t forgive, if you take everything personally, if you dwell on past wrongs, you will ultimately stunt your own growth. Encouragingly, he also points out that because this mindset is learned, it can be unlearned.
There is considerable evidence of the positive changes that occur when someone develops a greater sense of agency over their life (self-efficacy in psychology speak) For advice on how to instill this in young children I recommend the work of Lenore Skenazy. It’s critical that all young people cultivate a "growth mindset"—the belief that with hard work and some support, their talents can be developed. Dr. Kaufman has written extensively on these concepts as well (see here and here). One could argue that this is a main purpose of education, to foster the belief that you can endure difficult things—that your effort matters. This might be what universities are trying to get at when they generically ask applicants how they overcame a hardship. Possessing this kind of "grit" can indicate potential for success.
What’s curious is that Yong herself clearly knows all of this, but it’s not the focus of her speech. At the end of her lecture, she describes a scenario in which rather than writing about her traumatic experience as an immigrant—the permanent loss of cultural identity that she suffered and the sense of disbelonging that still haunts her—she would write about how she conquered her fear of public speaking, and how she (now) revels in being the “loudest person in the room.” Presumably, with effort and persistence she overcame something difficult, something filled with negative emotions, something often described as traumatic, to eventually turn it into something positive. At the risk of sounding callous, why wouldn’t these lessons apply to all things difficult, including her immigrant experience?
Of course, I recognize that all of this is aspirational. Processing trauma (clinical or not) is easier said than done. If processing trauma is hard, questioning it feels impossible. To cast doubt on or to question the experience of any oppressed person is to appear insensitive. And while I can’t prove if Yong’s message is debilitating for young people, or if it continues the trend of victimhood, the point is that the existence of trauma and its severity is subjective. This also means we can’t decide for others how they should perceive their experience or if they’re “ready” to process it.
I’m sure that some will dismiss me as out of touch. After all, I’m not an immigrant, what do I know? The truth is that I can’t ever know what it’s like to be an immigrant, or to be female, or gay. My aim is not to compete, but to connect. And if I can’t connect with you on the uniqueness of your personal victimhood, how can I connect with you?
The fact that we spend so much time and effort identifying with our traumas and competing as victims blinds us to the shared humanity of suffering—we are all victims of the human experience. In many ways, the immigrant story is a version of humanity’s story: both are tales of suffering and perseverance.
That we all suffer is unavoidable. What we do with it, is up to us.
