NRI Mental Health · Dr. Prerna Kohli
Workplace Racism & Its Psychological Toll on NRIs
It's often too subtle to name and too persistent to ignore — the passed-over promotion, the mocked accent, the "where are you really from," the meeting where your idea only mattered once someone else repeated it. The toll it takes on NRIs is real, measurable, and badly under-addressed. This article names it, validates it, and offers ways to carry it.
What is workplace racism?
Workplace racism is unfair treatment, exclusion, stereotyping, bias, microaggressions, or structural barriers people face because of their race, ethnicity, nationality, accent, or cultural background. For many NRIs it is subtle rather than overt — a fog of small, individually-deniable incidents that are hard to name or challenge. Research consistently links these accumulated experiences of discrimination to higher rates of anxiety, depression, burnout, hypervigilance, and reduced self-esteem.
One of the hardest things about workplace racism is how rarely it announces itself clearly. Sometimes it's overt. Far more often it's a fog of small things — a tone, an assumption, a joke, an opportunity that quietly goes elsewhere — each one individually deniable, each one easy for others to wave away as oversensitivity. And so a great many NRIs carry it the way they carry so much else: privately, and with a nagging question of whether they're imagining it.
They're usually not. This article names what NRIs experience at work, takes seriously the psychological cost it exacts, and offers clinically grounded ways to protect your wellbeing — without pretending the problem is yours to single-handedly fix.
You are not imagining it
Sources: Carnegie Endowment, 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey; Pew Research Center survey of Asian adults (2022–23); meta-analytic reviews of racial discrimination and health (Gee, Paradies et al.). The first two figures are US-based — home to the largest population of Indian professionals abroad — and experiences vary by country, but the underlying pattern travels.
What workplace racism actually looks like for NRIs
It's rarely a slur. More often it's a pattern of smaller things that add up — what researchers call microaggressions — alongside structural barriers that are harder to see but shape entire careers.
The accent and the assumption
Being asked to repeat yourself, having your competence quietly discounted because of how you speak, watching people's attention drift the moment you open your mouth. For many NRIs, an accent that signals expertise in one room signals "lesser" in another — and the constant, low-grade effort of being clearly understood is exhausting in itself.
The ceiling you can sense but not see
Sometimes called the "bamboo ceiling" — being valued as a hard worker and technical expert, but repeatedly overlooked for leadership, visibility, or the roles that lead somewhere. You deliver, you're praised, and the promotion goes to someone who fits an unspoken picture of what a leader looks like. It's almost never said aloud, which is exactly what makes it so hard to challenge.
The "where are you really from"
The small, repeated reminders that you're seen as a guest rather than a colleague — the surprise at your English, the comments about your food, the assumption you'll handle the offshore calls, the sense that no matter how long you've been there, you remain slightly outside. Individually trivial. Cumulatively, a steady message that you don't fully belong.
The disappearing credit
Your idea passes unnoticed until a colleague says the same thing and it's brilliant. Your work becomes "the team's," your mistakes become yours alone. Over time this quietly rewrites your own sense of how much you contribute, and how much you're allowed to claim.
The damage of workplace racism is rarely any single incident. It's the accumulation — and the exhausting, lonely work of wondering after each one whether it counted, whether you're overreacting, whether to say anything at all.
The psychological toll — named honestly
The reason this matters for mental health is that the body and mind don't distinguish well between a dramatic event and a thousand small ones. Chronic, low-level bias is a chronic stressor, and it leaves real marks.
Eroded self-worth
When your competence is repeatedly questioned and your contributions repeatedly minimised, it becomes very hard not to internalise the message. Capable, accomplished people slowly start to doubt their own value — not because the doubt is true, but because they've been marinating in it for years.
Chronic hypervigilance
Never quite knowing where the next slight will come from keeps the nervous system on alert. You read every room, scan every comment for hidden meaning, brace before you speak. This vigilance is protective in the moment and corrosive over time — it's a major pathway from discrimination to anxiety, exhaustion, and burnout.
Suppressed anger
Most NRIs learn quickly that visible anger is dangerous at work — it confirms a stereotype, risks the job, marks you as "difficult." So the anger gets swallowed, again and again. But suppressed anger doesn't vanish; it turns inward, surfacing as resentment, low mood, physical tension, or a flatness that's hard to explain.
Imposter syndrome, with an extra weight
The familiar "I don't deserve to be here" feels heavier when the environment keeps subtly agreeing with it. For NRIs, imposter syndrome is often less an internal distortion and more an accurate read of a room that genuinely is harder to belong in — which makes the usual "just believe in yourself" advice ring hollow.
The gaslighting of self-doubt
Perhaps the cruelest part: because so much of it is deniable, you spend enormous energy questioning your own perception. Was that racism, or am I being sensitive? That doubt is itself draining, and it isolates you — because how do you even raise something you're not sure you're allowed to have noticed?
Why NRIs so often suffer it in silence
Several forces combine to keep this unspoken — and to keep people enduring far more than they should.
The "model minority" trap
The stereotype of Indians as uniformly successful and uncomplaining makes it feel almost illegitimate to struggle. If everyone assumes your community is thriving, naming your own pain can feel like letting the side down — or like you're the only one not coping.
"Be grateful you're here"
Many NRIs carry a deep internalised sense that they should be thankful for the opportunity, and that complaining is ungracious. Gratitude and mistreatment can coexist — being glad of an opportunity does not mean you must accept being diminished within it.
Precarity raises the stakes
When your visa, your income, and your right to stay are tied to your employer, the cost of "making a fuss" can feel enormous. That precarity is real, and it's a major reason people stay quiet — which makes it all the more important to have somewhere safe to process what's happening, even when confronting it openly isn't an option.
What it looks like in real life
Two composite pictures — drawn from common patterns, not from any individual client.
Arjun, engineer, California
Arjun is the one who fixes what no one else can, mentioned warmly in every review, and passed over for promotion three times running. The roles go to people he trained. He's stopped raising it because the one time he did, he was called "not quite leadership material yet" with no specifics. He's started doubting whether he's actually as good as he thought, and carries a tiredness that no holiday touches.
Composite illustration; not a real client.
Nisha, marketing lead, London
Nisha can't always point to anything she could put in an email. A tone in meetings, ideas that land only when repeated by someone else, the assumption she'll organise the team lunch. Each thing alone sounds like nothing. Together they've left her rehearsing every sentence before she speaks and lying awake replaying conversations, unsure whether she's perceptive or paranoid — and exhausted either way.
Composite illustration; not a real client.
Common signs workplace racism is affecting your mental health
The damage is often invisible to others and easy to dismiss in yourself. Some of the most common signs:
- Constant self-doubt — second-guessing your competence and your read on situations
- Anxiety before meetings, presentations, or interactions with certain people
- Hypervigilance — always scanning for the next slight or having to prove yourself
- Emotional exhaustion from managing how you're perceived
- Difficulty speaking up, or over-preparing before you do
- Eroding self-esteem and a creeping sense you don't quite belong
- Sleep disturbances and trouble switching off after work
- Burnout from carrying all of it with no outlet
Workplace racism is reported by Indian professionals in countries including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Singapore, and the UAE. It goes by many names — racism at work, workplace discrimination, racial microaggressions, immigrant workplace bias — but the cumulative toll on wellbeing is the common thread.
Clinically grounded ways to cope
None of this is your fault, and none of these strategies put the burden of fixing racism on you. They're about protecting your mind and wellbeing while you navigate a reality you didn't create.
1. Name it accurately — stop gaslighting yourself
The first relief usually comes from letting yourself call it what it is, instead of endlessly litigating whether you're "allowed" to be affected. Trusting your own perception — even when others would deny it — is protective. You don't need a courtroom-level case to be entitled to your own experience of being treated unfairly.
2. Separate their bias from your worth
This is the core inner work: refusing to let someone else's prejudice become your verdict on yourself. Their treatment of you is information about them and the environment — not evidence about your value, competence, or belonging. Holding that line, repeatedly, is how you protect self-worth from slow erosion.
3. Let the anger exist somewhere safe
Anger at being mistreated is healthy and accurate, even when expressing it at work isn't wise. It needs an outlet other than your own body — a trusted friend, a journal, movement, a therapist's room. Suppression isn't strength; it's storage, and stored anger eventually charges interest in the form of depression and physical strain.
4. Build spaces where you don't have to brace
Hypervigilance lifts only when you're somewhere you feel fully safe and seen. Deliberately investing in relationships and communities where you don't have to explain, perform, or defend yourself isn't a luxury — it's how the nervous system recovers. For many NRIs, connection with others who share the experience is profoundly steadying.
5. Choose your battles strategically, not guiltily
You are not obligated to confront every instance, and choosing not to is not weakness — it's conserving a finite resource. Some situations are worth documenting and escalating; others are worth simply protecting your peace from. Deciding deliberately, rather than from fear or guilt, returns a sense of agency that bias works hard to take away.
6. Treat the toll as a legitimate reason for support
You do not need to be in crisis to deserve help with this. The slow grind of workplace bias is exactly the kind of chronic stress therapy is good for — somewhere to process the anger, rebuild self-worth, and develop strategies, with someone who won't minimise what you're describing or make you prove it first.
A practical note. This article focuses on the psychological side — but serious or unlawful discrimination is also a workplace and legal matter, not something you're required to simply absorb. Depending on where you live, you may have real options through HR, internal grievance processes, or external bodies, and keeping a private record of incidents (dates, what was said, who was present) can matter if you ever choose to act. This isn't legal advice, and it's worth getting proper guidance for your specific situation — but you have more standing than the silence sometimes makes it feel.
Many NRIs spend years quietly questioning whether they're overreacting. Often the turning point comes when they stop debating whether their experience is valid and start focusing on protecting their wellbeing — which is exactly the work therapy can support.
You shouldn't have to carry this alone — or prove it first
Dr. Prerna Kohli offers confidential online counselling for NRIs across the world — a space to process the toll of workplace bias, rebuild self-worth, and protect your wellbeing, with someone who takes what you're describing seriously.
Message on WhatsApp Book an Online SessionQuestions NRIs often ask about this
How do I know if it's actually racism or if I'm being too sensitive?
This question itself is one of the most exhausting parts of the experience, and the constant self-doubt is a known effect of subtle bias — not a sign you're imagining things. You don't need certainty to be affected, and a single incident doesn't have to be "provable" for the cumulative pattern to be real. Talking it through with someone neutral often brings clarity, and validates a perception you may have been second-guessing for a long time.
Should I report it, given my visa depends on this job?
That's a genuinely difficult, personal calculation, and there's no universally right answer — your safety, security, and circumstances all matter. Whether or not you formally report, you still deserve support for the toll it takes. Many people find it helps to separate the two decisions: how to protect your wellbeing now (which you can always do), and whether and when to act formally (which can wait until you have proper guidance).
Why does this affect me so much when I'm otherwise doing well?
Because chronic, low-level stress is uniquely wearing — the body responds to a steady drip of small slights much as it responds to ongoing threat. Doing well externally doesn't insulate you; in fact, high-achieving people often absorb a great deal silently before it surfaces as anxiety, exhaustion, or low mood. The impact is a normal human response to an abnormal stressor, not a weakness.
Can therapy help if it can't change my workplace?
Yes. Therapy won't fix the environment, but it can substantially change how much damage the environment does to you — protecting your self-worth, giving the anger a healthy outlet, easing the hypervigilance, and helping you make clear-eyed decisions instead of fear-driven ones. Working with a psychologist who understands the NRI experience means you're believed from the first session, not asked to justify your reality.
Can workplace racism cause anxiety?
Yes. Decades of research link repeated experiences of discrimination to higher rates of anxiety, as well as depression and chronic stress. The mechanism is partly the incidents themselves and partly the hypervigilance between them — the constant low-level bracing for the next slight, which keeps the nervous system on alert and is fertile ground for anxiety over time.
Can workplace discrimination lead to burnout?
It often does. Beyond ordinary overwork, you're spending energy managing how you're perceived, proving your competence, and absorbing slights with no outlet — an invisible second job layered on the visible one. That sustained, unrewarded effort is a direct route to burnout, especially when the workplace offers no acknowledgement that any of it is happening.
What are workplace microaggressions?
Microaggressions are the small, often unintentional comments and behaviours that communicate bias — "where are you really from," remarks about your accent, surprise at your competence, your idea being ignored until someone else repeats it. Any single one is easy to dismiss; their power lies in repetition. The cumulative weight is what makes them so draining, even when no individual incident seems "big enough" to raise.
Should I change jobs because of workplace discrimination?
Sometimes leaving is the healthiest choice; sometimes it isn't feasible, especially when a visa is tied to the role. There's no single right answer — but the decision is best made from a clear, supported place rather than from exhaustion or fear. Therapy can help you weigh it honestly, protect your wellbeing while you decide, and act from strategy rather than depletion.
This article is for general psychoeducation and is not a substitute for individual professional, legal, or workplace advice. If you are experiencing discrimination, the right course of action depends on your specific circumstances; consider seeking appropriate professional guidance alongside support for your wellbeing.
