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The raging debate around the viability of reparations historically has focused on the debt due for the long term affects of slavery. African Americans' daily interactions with whites, in many instances, could result in physical assaults, imprisonment, or death. Yet, in spite of the consequences of these interactions, African Americans in their daily lives worked in the homes, businesses, and fields of white employers. The narratives of the experiences during legal segregation are similar, in many ways, to the narratives of the experiences during slavery with one exception. In this paper, we explore the viability of making a case for reparations, for the living. Using qualitative methods and content analysis we examined the oral accounts of older African Americans who lived through legal segregation. They share the ways in which the oppressive system of legal segregation affected their lives. We explore the effects of stress on their health, the patterns of inequality across the life span, and the potential psychological damage. However, African Americans are still attempting to heal the wounds stemming from the cycles of fear, victimization, and resistance to racism. To alleviate the effects on the health and minds of African Americans the trauma needs acknowledging--as do as their stories of courage, rebellion, and resistance--by the dominant society and by many African Americans as well. Reparations will assist in healing the race problems that plaque this country. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My current research titled "Malady of the Model Minority: White Racism's Assault on the Asian American Psyche," seeks to give voice to Asian Americans about their racial experiences in the US. Mental health disparities exist among Asian Americans compared to all other racial groups and remain largely under-researched and unexplained. Through in-depth interviews, I have collected stories from thirty-six Asian Americans about their life experiences - incidents of discrimination, acts of assimilation and resistance, and ways that individuals cope with occurrences of racism as individuals, families, communities, and as networks. Asian Americans are suffering at the hands of white racism. My interview data shows that even after incredible efforts to assimilate and achieve, Asian Americans still feel isolated and inadequate. Whether they experience an overt racist act or passively accept that they must abandon their racial identity to prevent mistreatment, the fact is that whites control the racial continuum and impose behavioral guidelines on Asian Americans that are costly. The Asian American experience is an untold experience. An untold experience is invisibility. My research contends that this invisibility, among other obstacles that are the result of systemic racism, may offer insight on the alarming mental health disparities facing Asian Americans. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]