Structural Racism and Wellbeing

The need for research that focuses on how communities of color prioritize healing is becoming increasingly important due to ongoing struggles over racial justice and social movements to counter white supremacy. McGee and Stovall (2015) discuss how oftentimes, “educators and researchers whose central focus is race and racism in education have only rarely theorized the mental health outcomes associated with racial stress and racial battle fatigue” (p. 495). Various scholarship examines the impact of racism in the lives of communities of color, such as racial battle fatigue (Smith, 2004) and spirit murdering (Williams, 1987; Love, 2016). Racial battle fatigue is described as the stress caused by experiencing racial microaggressions, which are everyday instances of racism. This scholarship examines how occurrences of racial violence impact one’s emotional, mental, and physical state (Smith et al., 2006). Relatedly, the concept of spirit murder notes that just as the physical murders of communities of color are horrific, so is enduring ongoing systemic oppression. Love’s (2016) scholarship examines how racialized oppression inflicts “slow deaths.” Both racial battle fatigue and spirit murdering emphasize the detrimental impact of everyday racism on the bodymindspirit (Lara, 2005).

Shifts in Youth Activism

Youth activism to counter systemic oppression, whether focused on educational access and equity, policing, climate justice, or immigration rights, has gained attention in the past twenty years for significant policy accomplishments and movement-building (Conner & Rosen, 2016; Kwon, 2013). Whereas initial studies documenting campaigns tended to focus on organizing strategy or policy victories, more recent work has described a pivot toward mental health and healing (Conner et al., 2023; Frost et al., 2019). They note, for example, that mental health challenges and stress are often heightened for racially marginalized youth who engage in activism to disrupt systemic oppression (Hope et al., 2017; Palomar et al., 2024). Palomar et al. (2024), for example, argue that activism can bring both benefits and threats to health and well-being and identify varied types of healing practices in community groups and social movements.

Although the empirical base is small and still emerging, studies document how youth of color activists find innovative ways to stay connected to their bodymindspirit through centering cultural practices that promote healing, such as humor, play, rituals, and art (Ginwirght, 2015; Greene et al., 2021; Palomar et al., 2024). For example, Desai (2020) discusses a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) project that brought together five Chicana youth and members of Leaders Organizing 2 Unite & Decriminalize (LOUD). The YPAR project was informed by how police brutality impacts communities of color and how the ongoing Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement encouraged the team to create a Día de los Muertos float to honor the lives and spirits of youth of color who experienced extrajudicial deaths. The youth were experiencing continuous heartbreak over the unfathomable deaths of communities of color; however, they found healing in uplifting the lives of those who have passed on through a cultural, personal practice that invited creativity, solidarity, and critical hope.

Ginwright (2015) discusses how young people involved in social justice advocacy recognize healing as a political practice (Chavez-Diaz & Lee, 2015; Page & Woodland, 2023) that “rests on the theoretical premise that well-being is a function of social justice” (p. 9). From this lens, Ginwright (2015) adds that there is a slight, yet noteworthy, distinction between healing and well-being. Healing focuses on identifying the root causes of harm and taking steps to repair the damage, while well-being is concerned about how to sustain wellness. In youth organizing spaces this understanding is crucial: youth of color are blending healing and activism together by focusing on addressing root causes in their campaigns while also supporting each other’s well-being along the way (Chavez-Diaz & Lee, 2015).

McGee and Stovall (2015) acknowledge that deep analyses of what healing looks like, especially from a critical race theory (CRT) lens, are understudied. We, too, see that this issue is being taken up by young people themselves, but qualitative accounts of how youth of color define healing and how it relates to their activism are still rare. Such studies are needed, particularly those that are carried out in collaboration with youth through participatory methods. This article aims to add to the emerging knowledge base about how youth of color define healing and how it can accompany social justice activist projects. Our scholarship works to contextualize how youth of color activists’ mental health journeys are informing their desires to prioritize healing in their organizing efforts.

Critical Race Theory

As a social justice framework, CRT in education provides tools to articulate and critique how racism and white supremacy manifest and function in the United States (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). A CRT-informed analysis underscores the importance of creating PAR spaces where racialized experiences are held and honored so youth of color activists can reflect and process together. Below we explain CRT’s explicit relations to our study:

Healing Justice

While CRT can support us in unearthing the consequences of racialized oppression in the lives of youth of color, theories of healing justice support us in acknowledging marginalized communities’ responsive healing strategies. Healing justice is a political and spiritual framework, grounded in communal care that fosters the envisioning of new worlds beyond our current colonial context (Page & Woodland, 2023). This is a necessary departure from the Westernized, ahistorical, individualized ideologies around healing (Kindred Southern Healing Justice Collective, 2021). By uplifting the everyday healing practices of marginalized communities as sacred and essential, healing justice offers joy, community, and rest amidst the ongoing struggles for collective liberation. Everyday healing activities can include storytelling, music, and art (see Greene et al., 2021). Youth of color are increasingly noting that advocacy and healing must occur simultaneously as marginalized communities engage in the lifelong fight for liberation (Ginwright, 2015). Healing justice is an embodied practice that invited the PAR team to bring in their cultural experiences and understandings of healing to disrupt mainstream narratives that devalue non-Western perceptions of mental health.

Research Design

As part of a long-term effort to develop a healing justice action research collective, we carried out a multigenerational PAR project in which the Voices of Healing co-creators (Alexis, Ben, and Solicia) collaborated with eight youth of color activists (Chanelle is a youth of color activist) to discuss experiences at the intersection of healing and activism. The Voices of Healing team is made of two university researchers and a local community organizer/activist. The eight youth of color activists who joined were affiliated with youth organizations, spanned ages ranging from 15 to 25 years old, and, more specifically, comprised three high school students, two undergraduate students, and three young adult organizational staff members.

For the full PAR team, including the co-creators, four members self-identified as Black/African American, one as Somali/African American, one as Latine, one as Hispanic, one as Arab, one as East Indian/African, one as Native-Chicana, and one as white.

Alexis is a Black doctoral student and scholar-activist in education policy and learning sciences where she explores how racially marginalized communities engage in healing and activism both online and offline. At the time of the PAR project, Alexis was under 25 and also identified as a youth activist of color. Chanelle is a Somali/African American second-year undergraduate student. She was born and raised in Aurora, Colorado, and participates in social activism and healing justice work. Ben is a white Jewish professor of education who brings experience as a youth worker, learning sciences scholar, and PAR facilitator. Solicia is a Native American who identifies as a Chicana organizer and activist. Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, she has dedicated her career to organizing youth around education and social justice.

The PAR project was developed in collaboration with participants, placing their lived experiences at the forefront of the research process. PAR is an orientation to inquiry that values collaboration and knowledge production that emerges from communities whose lived experiences provide them with invaluable insights, thus positioning community participants as co-researchers and ‘insiders’ in the phenomenon being studied (Fine, 2017). By utilizing participatory action research (PAR), we emphasize a collective approach that positions youth of color activists’ knowledge as sacred (Torre, 2009) through valuing the perspectives of those located at the margins (hooks, 1984). Drawing inspiration from hooks’ (2015) assertion that spaces of marginality are locations of unlimited possibilities, the Voices of Healing co-creators cultivated a PAR space with youth of color activists that prioritize youth agency and social justice, which is in alignment with the CRT tenets of centrality of experiential knowledge and commitments to social justice. We asked the PAR team what they would like to explore together during the PAR cycle and what possible goals might be. Furthermore, our design and enactment of the PAR study embodied principles of healing justice that position communities’ expertise in their own healing journeys and emphasize the importance of creating spaces for their own healing while also engaging in activism for systems change (Ginwright, 2015; Page & Woodland, 2023). The table below summarizes key activities of the project and how they contributed to our analysis for this article.

The PAR team members were recruited by the three co-creators of Voices of Healing (Alexis, Ben, and Solicia), who hosted various listening sessions and 1:1 conversations with youth organizations and staff to build relationships with potential participants. Those interested applied through a Google form, and the co-creators held informal virtual interviews to learn about the potential participants and their interest in the project. Throughout this recruiting process, we emphasized our interests in collaborating with youth of color who are interested in the intersections of mental health, healing, and activism. In the Google form application, applicants were asked to share their interests in applying, discuss what healing means to them, and that this collaborative project would be centered around thinking about how communities think about wellness in relation to social justice. We had 20 young people apply, and after reading over the applications, we invited ten to join the project. In selecting participants, we valued racial diversity, affiliations with youth organizations in the area (though we did not limit to those in our existing network), capacity, and their willingness to discuss and share experiences. While we initially began with ten PAR participants, two youth had to drop early based on other commitments, leaving eight youth participants plus the three co-designers. At our kickoff dinner, we asked them all to share a bit more about themselves and their experiences with healing and involvement in youth organizing contexts. All the participants identified themselves as activists and noted their excitement about being able to reflect on their experiences alongside other youth of color. The youth members received a $1000.00 stipend for their participation.

As summarized in Table 1, the project followed the contours common in the PAR cycle, including building community, critical self-reflection on experiences with the topic, design of research protocols, data collection, data analysis, and a culminating event. The key data collection completed by the team was interviews with members of the community. Each team member recruited two to three interviewees based on personal relationships and networks. The PAR team invited these participants to be interviewed either by verbally asking or sending them a text message. This process was carried out with the approval of the University of Colorado Boulder’s Institutional Review Board.

Data Collection

The PAR team collected a few types of data from which to identify lessons and learnings about healing.

Meeting notes and self-reflection prompts. Each meeting included opportunities for participants to reflect on their own experiences and perspectives. These reflections were documented through journal writing, discussions, and drawings. Most discussions were documented through notes that were written on poster paper or in Google Docs. During the PAR cycle meeting, notes were typed up by Voices of Healing organizers and the PAR participants. The Voices of Healing team asked for consent to take notes, and all the participants had the option to opt out of their insights collected or analyzed while still being able to participate in the PAR cycle. The collective notes document was accessible to all members and shared with edit access via a team Google folder entitled “Our Stories, Our Healing team folder.”

Interviews with trusted friends, colleagues, and family. In addition to drawing on our own lived experience, the PAR members each selected 2–3 racially marginalized people to interview about their perspectives on healing. The interview protocol was created over several weeks to maximize the collective expertise of the group. After the first conversation, we (Alexis, Ben, and Solicia) refined the questions, organized them, and shared them back with the PAR team for final edits before submitting them to IRB for approval. We did not audio record interviews. Interviews were documented through summary notes submitted to a Google form by each interviewer within 24 hours of completing the interviews. The PAR team interviewed community members who were 18 and older due to our university’s IRB regulations. The interviews were intergenerational, as community interviewees ranged from undergraduate students to parents and community elders. The PAR team completed a total of 22 interviews. Community interview participants received a $25.00 e-gift card.

Analysis

We analyzed data in two phases. The first phase of data analysis occurred during the PAR project, as Alexis created initial codes from the internal conversations and community interviews and brought them to the PAR team to reflect upon and engage in further sensemaking during an in-person gathering. We drew on techniques for collaborative qualitative data analysis (Cornish et al., 2013; Jackson, 2008). These include making biases visible to each other, clustering examples from interviews thematically, making meaning together about how themes contribute to an overall story, and collectively constructing a narrative about the key lessons or themes from the work. In addition, we clustered in small groups with the prompt to “draw a picture” that represented key themes related to healing in the data and then shared those pictures with each other. Following the collective reflection on the interviews, the PAR team organized a convening where the interviewees and other trusted community members were invited to share insights and reflect on their orientations to healing.

The second phase of data analysis occurred after the PAR meetings had ended. Alexis invited the entire PAR team to co-author an article together. Chanelle worked with Alexis to refine the codes and developed a specific focus for writing. The themes presented here reflect both the thematic processing of the PAR team and the continued thematic analysis by Alexis and Chanelle. Both identify as youth of color. Ben and Solicia are adults who were a part of the PAR team and joined the writing process after the initial abstract was written and participated in sense-making conversations and writing revisions. The paper was shared with the entire PAR team to incorporate their insights and feedback and for transparency.

Recognizing the barriers to healing

The PAR team frequently discussed that they face additional obstacles in their healing journeys because of their racial identity. PAR members shared how, as youth of color activists, they rarely encounter spaces designed for renewal; many shared that the PAR space was the first time they were being asked to explicitly reflect on their own healing journeys and expressed gratitude for the space we cultivated together.

During the second PAR meeting, for example, Alexis and Solicia asked the team to reflect on two questions. First, the team was asked to reflect on “times in their life where they experienced a healing space(?) and think about who/what healing elements were present” and second to consider “a social community, physical space, peer and/or organization space where you felt whole, seen and like healing was occurring.” Participants reflected on their own for a couple of minutes before discussing collectively. After a couple of minutes of thinking, a youth participant spoke up and asked the group if we wanted to switch the order of the activity and begin by noting spaces where they were not experiencing healing. The PAR members agreed and explained that in order to notice where healing is taking place, “it is easier to start with where healing does not feel present.”

Many noticings emerged from this dialogue. The PAR team noted that even spaces that are explicitly designed for healing can be harmful to racially marginalized communities. For example, a PAR member shared how many of the traditional “wellness spaces” she has encountered often have good intentions but have been harmful to her because they are rooted in whiteness. She shared how the spaces she encountered disregarded her racial identity. PAR members noted that places where they experienced healing were often everyday environments, where healing attributes might be overlooked. For example, people named being in nature, digital spaces (ex. social media), beauty shops, and spending time with friends and family as everyday environments that can facilitate healing. It is also worth noting that the PAR team discussed how the lists they curated had far more spaces where healing was not being experienced.

Although some PAR members talked about sharing time with friends and family as a healing experience, some PAR members shared that pursuing healing can often be a lonely experience because of the stigmas associated with mental health in their own families and friend groups. They shared this with compassion and noted that complexly their interpersonal circles can be both healing and harmful. For example, PAR members shared that it is healing to be around their family and learn more about their cultures. However, the team also noted how it can be difficult to pursue healing because some family members may fail to recognize the importance of taking up healing outside of tending to physical and visible wounds. The PAR team shared a desire to interrupt the silence around mental health in marginalized communities. During a PAR team reflection, a member shared that because of the ways we have been socialized to see mental health as a taboo topic, healing requires self-transformation alongside shifting broader perspectives on wellness.

As conversations regarding the barriers to healing continued, the PAR team noted it is important to understand how intersectional experiences make pursuing healing more layered. Members of the PAR team shared that intersectional identities (e.g., Black and woman, Latine and queer) can make healing journeys more complex. A community interviewee shared how, as a woman of color, sharing struggles about mental health can be daunting because being vulnerable and sharing feelings have caused people to weaponize her emotions against her, and her feelings have been neglected in the past. Women of color members of the PAR team echoed these sentiments and also shared that their needs are often pushed aside because of societal gender framings that position women of color as caretakers. A PAR member shared how personally these expectations for her are burdens that she is working through releasing.

Lastly, the PAR team voiced frustrations about the lack of access to culturally responsive healthcare providers. While the PAR members do not prefer engaging with the healthcare system for mental health support, they acknowledged that it is the approach most often encouraged. Many PAR members shared harmful personal experiences with counselors, therapists, and other healthcare workers due to their lack of training on how to accommodate the needs of racially marginalized clients. Furthermore, PAR members noted that even once they can access culturally responsive healthcare workers, they often run across financial barriers that continue to make the support they need inaccessible. It can be scary to pursue therapy or other healthcare practices for the first time, and the PAR team argues that these negative experiences and barriers can understandably turn away historically excluded communities.

As the PAR team continuously noted how overwhelming these barriers can be, they also discussed how ancestral teachings, such as spending time in nature, ritual practices, spirituality, and staying connected with ancestors are ways marginalized communities embrace healing despite the lack of access. Importantly, a community interviewee said, “Although we have inherited trauma, we have also inherited cross-cultural, scientific, metaphysical, and artistic healing mechanisms.” These insights moved the PAR team to discuss the importance of leveraging their cultural guides to disrupt personal and generational trauma.

Disrupting personal and generational cycles

In internal discussions among the PAR team and in interviews with community leaders, people emphasized a shared desire to disrupt personal and generational cycles. Healing is seen as a practice that can interrupt harmful cycles and also inform the creation of new patterns and ways of being in the world. Many PAR members shared that communities of color need to situate their experiences in the broader context of white supremacy to understand historically how trauma is shaped. A community interviewee shared the importance of understanding healing as a full-time practice because “since adolescence, we have been experiencing forms of trauma. Our ancestors pass on their lived trauma through bloodlines, stories, and artifacts.” Throughout the PAR process, the team continued to acknowledge how identities play a significant role in our relationships to healing. Due to how systemic oppression affects the everyday lives of marginalized people, the PAR team expressed that desires to heal are aligned with broader ongoing struggles toward collective liberation. The PAR team echoed these sentiments throughout the PAR cycle and reflected on the importance and difficulties of disrupting familial and generational trauma. However, the team also noted that as one comes to understand personal and generational trauma, one must do so comprehensively to acknowledge the transmission of both trauma and ancestral knowledge from ancestors.

Yet, the PAR project also surfaced an important both/and: commitments to healing should not be solely in relation to systemic violence; trauma and white supremacy cannot be the only frame of reference. A PAR member shared, “We are so much more than our healing journeys.” Therefore, while the PAR team values their roles as youth of color activists, healing reminds them their purpose goes beyond solely striving for social change or dismantling oppressive systems. The PAR team and the community interviews emphasize that for the marginalized, healing has traditions before and beyond the constraints of white supremacy that should be honored and express the importance of affirming that communities of color are already whole and worthy.

During a large group debrief, a PAR member shared that slowing down to process and learn about her racialized experiences has allowed her to develop more self-compassion and empathy for how marginalized communities are navigating the world, which resonated with many. The PAR team noted that this understanding has led to the realization that healing is not a “one and done” experience but rather an ongoing process, informing a sustainable desire to not only disrupt trauma but to dismantle all systems that inflict harm. The PAR members displayed this understanding through various analogies and artistic expressions. For example, one PAR member conveyed this in a poem, writing, “it is okay to be myself/transformation should not be rushed/open yourself to trust,” and that this poem represents healing as an ongoing, transformative “process people should be open to.” Another PAR member compared healing to “intersecting waves” because of the way waves represent dynamic movement and flow. Many discussed this realization as salient to their understanding of healing and an important departure from Westernized perspectives that have a “fix it” approach to mental health, and all PAR team members expressed that this motivates them to pursue healing and encourage others to do the same in order to interrupt harmful cycles and continue growing into better versions of themselves.

Creating communal opportunities for healing

All PAR members shared how our collective time together provided a rare environment to transparently express the dilemmas of healing and activism as racially marginalized people. They also shared that communal spaces are an essential aspect of developing and implementing healing practices in their own lives. During an internal PAR gathering, a member shared that communities of color need sacred spaces to pause and check in with oneself and community. The other PAR members agreed and shared that creating opportunities for pausing is critical to holistic wellness and movement building. A PAR member shared that, “as I tend to myself, it supports my community, and healing does not just happen individually. It happens in community.”

As the group started thinking about the “action” part of the PAR cycle, we had conversations about how to culminate the work of the group. The third author, with prior experience leading PAR, brought an assumption there should be some kind of public action, like sharing policy recommendations to youth organizations or schools. As the group began envisioning what a culminating event might look like, however, team members were less interested in recommendations or proposals and instead decided to create a sacred space for themselves and their extended community to heal and commune together.

To honor this understanding and to close this iteration of the PAR cycle, the group planned and hosted a small convening for family and friends. While different PAR members took leadership for different aspects of the convening, the overall vision was agreed upon by the whole team in discussions held over two meetings. The convening took place at a community organization in Denver, where one of the PAR participants worked. Team members invited local community leaders and loved ones. The space was multigenerational: friends, teachers, parents, and children were all in attendance. Food was catered from a local Mediterranean, BIPOC-owned business and laid out on a buffet table, family style, so that people could enjoy it throughout the convening. A healing playlist curated by the PAR team played in the background.

The convening opened with a spoken word poem co-created and performed by two members of the PAR team. The poem honored artistic expression as salient and sacred to marginalized communities’ sense-making and healing. The PAR team’s poem addressed key conversations and insights that emerged from internal discussions and conversations with the community interviewees. The poem specifically spoke to the importance of historicizing experiences and (re)connecting with roots as critical pieces that guide approaches to healing. Following the poem, two other PAR members introduced themselves as the emcees for the convening, introduced the team, and provided a glimpse of what the community convening would offer. Then members of the PAR team led the attendees through healing activities that foster inclusivity and a chance for us to connect to our bodies and each other through breathwork and affirmations.

During the convening, PAR members introduced us to local BIPOC healers and vendors as resources for us to connect with throughout, as their work is grounded in culturally situated healing practices. These healers and vendors provided reiki, essential oils and lotions, tarot card readings, and handmade jewelry to community members throughout the convening. Through paired and large group discussions, we shared our personal healing experiences, and the PAR team shared common themes with the attendees who emerged from internal meetings and the community interviews. We closed with members of the PAR team opening up space for final reflections, expressing gratitude for the opportunity to share space, and with the Voices of Healing co-creators sharing next steps and future opportunities for continued collaboration.

As co-authors and members of the PAR team, we wanted to share aspects of the convening that resonated with us. Alexis loved the familial energy of the convening that the music and the fellowship through food and storytelling offered. She also appreciated the opportunity to meet and connect with the PAR team’s loved ones and trusted community members throughout the convening. Chanelle’s favorite moment from the convening was bringing the community interviewees, family, and friends experiences into conversation with the PAR team’s learnings to highlight shared desires for healing and systemic transformation. Ben, who attended with his partner and two middle school students, appreciated that the convening made guests feel welcome and how the activities inspired the two middle school students to engage in conversations about healing. Solicia enjoyed how the convening centered on the healing insights of youth of color activists while also tending to broader multigenerational community needs for spaces to reflect. She saw the convening as a tangible confirmation of the healing, learning, joy, and activism that emerge from communing with one another and noted that while the event was planned and hosted by the PAR team, it was a reciprocal space where everyone engaged in the questions and ideas inspired by the project.

Interview Questions

Thank you again for taking your time to participate in this interview. It should take about 30 minutes, but it can be longer if you’d like to share more. Please remember that there are no right or wrong answers to these questions; we just want to hear from you—your stories and experiences.

SHARED QUESTIONS (for all of us to ask)

• 1. What does healing mean to you?

  • a. What are some practices that you find healing?

  • b. When do you use them?

• 2. Do you feel like your identity (ex. race, gender, etc.) impacts how you pursue healing? (For example, as a man, does it feel harder to heal when there are stereotypes about emotions?)

• 3. Tell me about a time when you realized that healing was needed.

• 4. Describe how you’re feeling, without using “good,” “fine,” or “okay.” Please be as specific as you are comfortable with.

UNIQUE QUESTIONS (select 2–4 of these questions to ask based on what is most important to you)

• 5. Can you share a form of art (song, poem, painting, etc.) that resonates with you and feels healing?

  • a. What led you to select that piece of art?

• 6. How have other individuals or groups contributed to your healing?

  • a. Have you been part of a healthy, healing community? What has that been like? What does it feel like?

  • b. Is there a healing person from your childhood?

• 7. Do you ever feel like healing takes up too much space and/or is a burden?

• 8. When you feel lost or that you’ve fallen off the path of healing, how do you gain peace again?

• 9. If you could create a space that had healing qualities, what would that look like or feel like?

  • a. What would it take to maintain or sustain a space like that?

  • b. Have you had a positive healing experience dealing with health care institutions, like a hospital or clinic? Tell me about it.

• 10. Do you think healing is complete and/or do you think that happens?

• 11. Have you ever had to persevere through social injustice?

  • a. If yes, please tell me about it.

  • b. If you haven’t, do you believe you will ever have to in the future?

• 12. Tell me about a time when you pushed for change.

  • a. How was that related to healing?

• 13. How do you maintain a balance between taking care of yourself and others while doing social justice work? (Alternative wording: How do you prevent burnout while doing social justice work?)

• 14. Our research group will be sharing recommendations for healing with community organizations and people engaged in social justice work. Do you have any advice you want us to share when we present our results?