How We (People of Color) Grieve

There is a cultural chasm dividing European American families and families of color, especially immigrant families, around issues of death, loss, grief, and ambiguity. For the European Americans, there is often the seemingly impersonal and bounded culture-keeping a stiff upper lip and the avoidance of public displays of emotion. Get over it; move on. For African Americans and Latinos, among others, there is often a more direct, intimate, and expressive tradition around death, as well as with ambiguous loss. The cultural differences existed in therapists, too.

HEALING LOSS, AMBIGUITY, AND TRAUMA: A COMMUNITY‐BASED INTERVENTION WITH FAMILIES OF UNION WORKERS MISSING AFTER THE 9/11 ATTACK IN NEW YORK CITY 
Pauline Bossl, Lorraine Beaulieu, Elizabeth Wieling, William Turner, Shulaika LaCruz 
Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Volume 29, Issue 4, pages 455–467, October 2003