HISTORICAL TRAUMA is the cumulative emotional and psychological wounding, resulting from group-community traumatic
experiences, transmitted across generations within a community.
Examples of HISTORICAL TRAUMA include slavery, forced displacement from home,
discimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender and more, and forcing children to leave home to be schooled at a government or religious school of the dominant culture. Other
examples include war and genocide.
STRUCTURAL TRAUMA is the emotional and psychological damage from inequity enforced through public policies, institutional practices, cultural images and behaviors which are built into the structure of the culture and which reinforce social inequity. Examples include discrimination in economic opportunity, employment, education, housing, healthcare, and the right to marry.