In 2016, Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election, a seismic event that exposed the fractured reality of the early 21st century. This victory signaled not only a shift in political power but also the resurfacing of historical tensions, traumas, and ideologies many thought were left in the past. Now, having won the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Trump returns to office for a second term. For many, including myself, his victory serves as a painful reminder of unresolved histories and latent biases that still haunt our families, our bodies, and our societies. The truth of our current reality is not merely political; it is visceral—deeply embedded in generations of trauma, inherited beliefs, and a globalized world struggling to reconcile with itself. It compels me to confront my own family's past and present views, tracing back to the fascist regime my parents fled in Portugal, only to encounter a new set of challenges, contradictions, and injustices here in Canada.
My parents emigrated from Portugal in the 1960s to escape the grip of fascism, hoping to find a better life on Canada’s shores. Like many Portuguese immigrants of that time, they were greeted with prejudice and suspicion, often grouped with Italians, Spanish, and Greek newcomers who were seen as threats to “white” Canadians’ job security and economic resources. (1) Despite this, Canada granted them a kind of freedom—a freedom they believed would offer safety, security, and a future free from oppression. Yet, as I look at my family today, I find myself caught in a web of irony. My mother recently revealed to me that she supports Trump, a figure whose rhetoric fuels division and resentment; my father and brother, despite their own experiences with discrimination, make unconscious and casual racist remarks about BIPOC individuals. The very liberty and safety my family sought seems undermined by their adoption of the same biases they once feared. Meanwhile, the women in my family, whose autonomy was limited during the fascist era of Portugal, have internalized a worldview that denies others the freedom to choose for themselves: my mother is pro-life, and my aunt believes that trans children are somehow “sick.” This painful contradiction reveals the complexity of generational trauma and how systems of oppression reassert themselves even across borders and decades.
Lisbon on the 25th April 1974; ending 40 years of fascism under the rule of Dr. Salazar (Hemeroteca Digital)
These patterns are not unique to my family. Trauma lives in our bodies, influencing how we think, behave, and view the world. Like so many men of his generation, my father was the “dictator” of our household. His authority ruled our lives, and as children, we internalized his control and adopted his biases. My mother, in her own way, mirrored the patriarchy she had been subjected to, a system she had learned to navigate and survive. This dynamic wasn’t just evident in our family; it played out in households everywhere. Boys grow up seeing dominance and violence—whether physical or emotional—as a normal, even legitimate, expression of power. They were denied the space to be vulnerable, to develop empathy or emotional intelligence. Anger and violence were the only models available, reinforced not just at home but in schoolyards, in the media, and throughout society. (2) Our family’s internalized power dynamics reflect broader societal structures, ones that favor domination over empathy and authority over compassion. These structures, embedded in family norms, continue to shape our identities and influence how we relate to the world.
The pain held by men often extends outward, leading to violence that hurts not only others but themselves. Hurt men hurt others, perpetuating cycles of aggression that ripple across communities and even nations. This dynamic resonates far beyond my personal experience, echoing in the ongoing conflicts and hostilities that shape our world. The current conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbours, for example, is arguably rooted in Jewish trauma stemming from the Holocaust, a historic atrocity that has left a legacy of fear, distrust, and defensiveness. (3) This is a painful truth across humanity: unresolved trauma fuels cycles of harm, affecting entire generations and communities. Our collective pain, if left unaddressed, compels us to recreate the suffering we’ve endured rather than heal from it.
History is indeed repeating itself. I remember a teacher once telling me that history is “a study of the past to understand our present and prepare for the future.” Looking back, it’s clear that today’s reality bears troubling resemblances to the early 20th century. Back then, societies worldwide faced the Spanish flu pandemic, economic challenges, rapid technological advances, and waves of immigration. (4) The resulting tensions created fertile ground for fascism to flourish in Europe. Now, in the early 21st century, we find ourselves navigating similar dynamics—public health crises, economic uncertainty, demographic shifts, and social polarization. The same unresolved fears, biases, and traumas that once led to fascist regimes are reemerging, hinting at the dangers of ignoring history’s lessons.
The trauma my family carries is a microcosm of this cyclical history—a legacy of forgetting, of willful ignorance, of failing to address past wounds. Hurt people continue to hurt people, passing down their unresolved pain in forms that may seem contradictory or hypocritical to outsiders. My family’s prejudices and fears, birthed from their own suffering and challenges, seem almost surreal at times, an irony that reflects a broader societal hypocrisy. We repeat destructive patterns not because we are incapable of change but because we have failed to truly confront and understand the traumas underlying these behaviors.
Since recent Trump’s election, I have felt this reality deeply within my own body. Some mornings, I wake up frozen, immobilized by the weight of the world’s present challenges. I think about the people suffering in this neo-fascist era, about the loss of freedoms and the pervasive trauma left unresolved across generations. This immobilizing anxiety, I realize, is not just a response to present events but a reminder of the unresolved traumas of the past—a call to confront the unresolved pain inherited from those who came before us.
Reality today requires acknowledging the return of neo-fascism, a painful reminder that history can indeed repeat itself. But in this acknowledgment, there is also an invitation: to make space for grief, to reconnect with our bodies and the histories they carry, to confront both personal and societal trauma. This requires courage—the courage to see the good and the bad within ourselves and others, to recognize the complexity of every individual, and to embrace the diverse ecosystems that make up our world. To return to our bodies, the land, and art that offers healing and medicine for the soul. To continue fighting against injustice, not just in action but in understanding. And, most importantly, to cultivate empathy for those who are different from us—those who are impacted in ways we may never fully comprehend by the systems we live within.
This is our reality. It is complex, painful, and challenging. But it is also an opportunity to transform trauma into understanding, division into compassion, and fear into an acknowledgement of the past, a deeper connection with our bodies, with each other and our shared world.
(1) Ari, Esra; Portuguese-Canadians as "Dark-Whites:" Dynamics of Social Class, Ethnicity, and Racialization through Historical and Critical Analysis; https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA693325858&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=10571515&p=IFME&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7Eff1363c2&aty=open-web-entry
(2) hooks, bell. The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Washington Square Press, 2004.
(3) van de Kerk, Bessel and Stern, Jessica; POV: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the Psychology of Trauma; https://www.bu.edu/articles/2024/the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-and-the-psychology-of-trauma/
(4) Funke, Manuel, Moritz Schularick, and Christoph Trebesch. "Defensive Nationalism: Explaining the Rise of Populism and Fascism in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries." Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, Oxford University Press, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.993.