Clinical psychologist Shamaila Khan. Courtesy photo.
“I’ve lived across three continents, crossed a thousand lines, inhabited the empty spaces between the times,” began Shamaila Khan, a clinical psychologist at Boston Medical Center and an assistant professor of psychiatry at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine.
She was reciting a spoken-word poem, “Found in Translation,” which explored how her experiences across countries, cultures, and languages have shaped her identity.
“Always traveling, always on the go,” she continued. “Catching the next flight. Riding the undertow. The in-between is my most familiar territory. I belong everywhere and nowhere. That is my story.”
As the keynote speaker at the Boston College School of Social Work’s 2026 Pinderhughes Diversity Lecture in September, Khan used the poem as a jumping-off point for a talk about the “messy,” “beautiful,” and “complex hybrid identity” that develops in the aftermath of colonial rule.
She described herself as multiethnic, multicultural, multinational, and multilingual, adding that she was raised in multigenerational homes and has lived in multiple colonized nations. For her, identity is fluid—not fixed.
“Identity is an exploration of how people see themselves versus how they’re taught to see themselves,” she told dozens of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends who attended the event via Zoom. “It is about the idea that we don’t belong in one place, but belong to multiple spaces. That identity is fluid and shifting and not static.”
Khan, who identifies as a Pakistani American Muslim, argued that colonialism doesn’t simply end when colonial powers relinquish control. It “leaves behind a fractured sense of self,” she said, influencing how people understand themselves and alienating them from their own cultures.
Khan pointed to Eurocentric beauty standards as one example of colonialism’s enduring influence. “I grew up in a culture where the idea of whitening your skin was a prevalent one,” said Khan, who recalled using skin-whitening products until she began to question the practice. “It was just automatic.”
Colonial influence can also persist through language, according to Khan. People in Pakistan speak 60 languages, but English, she said, remains the language of power, elite education, law, and civil administration.
“Are we heard and seen when speaking English versus our own language?” she asked. “What are the unconscious biases that are associated with that?”
“ Decolonization is not a trend and it’s not a metaphor. It isn’t just about changing the curriculum or putting a diversity statement on a website. It's an ongoing, sometimes uncomfortable practice of dismantling systemic biases, of unlearning Eurocentric standards of beauty and success, and making real space for marginalized communities to hold structures. ”
One attendee asked Khan how social workers can decolonize mental health care. As the executive director of the Center for Multicultural Training in Psychology at Boston University, Khan said that she consciously tries to subvert traditional hierarchies between clients and providers, giving them space to express themselves in every facet of their identities.
“Learning goes both ways,” she said. “How do we structure and shape that? How do we sit in that room? Who has the voice? Who has the power?”
Khan described what happens when clinicians overlook cultural context. She recalled working with a group of Rohingya women in Bangladesh whose children had been killed in front of them. A previous group of clinicians had tried an intervention focused on meditation, but because meditation is rooted in Buddhism and the Rohingya had been persecuted by Buddhists, the intervention fell apart.
“Getting them to then use their own frameworks to exercise their own faith was much more healing,” she said.
Khan’s focus on culture, identity, and power dynamics echoed the work of Elaine Pinderhughes—the lecture’s namesake and a social work pioneer whose seminal research revealed that race, ethnicity, and power strongly influence how social workers interact with clients.
“She’s been an inspiration for many folks like myself who are committed to social justice,” Khan said of Pinderhughes, who attended the virtual lecture. “Inspired by Elaine’s courage to speak on difficult topics and by her transparency in sharing her own family heritage, I offer today’s topic of locating the self.”
She closed by urging social workers to question the frameworks that shape their thinking, encouraging them to scrutinize their bookshelves, syllabi, and social media feeds to identify whose voices they are centering and whose histories they are leaving out.
“Decolonization is not a trend and it’s not a metaphor. It isn’t just about changing the curriculum or putting a diversity statement on a website. It's an ongoing, sometimes uncomfortable practice of dismantling systemic biases, of unlearning Eurocentric standards of beauty and success, and making real space for marginalized communities to hold structures,” said Khan. “We cannot choose a history that we have inherited, but we are entirely responsible for the structures we choose to cast down for the next generation.”