Growing up in America as a young immigrant female of darker complexion, I often found that in many of the spaces I entered, no one looked like me. Throughout my formative years, I tried my very best to leave behind all of the things that made me different, in hopes that being more like my peers and conforming to every box that I was put in, would make me a less suitable target for the consistent bullying found in my small public school system. At home, I tried to be the perfect child and conform to every need and expectation in hopes that it would somehow make me immune to the perpetual abuse I was exposed to and experienced. The most damaging part of my childhood was not the physical and sexual abuse at home or the bullying and lack of identity I felt in my school, but the notion within the black community that I was not allowed to talk about any of it. Growing up, the most hurtful part of the entire experience was not the situations within themselves, but the silence that I was subjected to. As I began to grow older and continued to excel in my studies despite all hardships, I began to realize that this suffocating silence was common within the black community, and I remember feeling the burden of knowing that this would be the thing that kills us. In my seventh-grade year after receiving a 21 on the ACT through a talent search program, I was afforded the opportunity to participate in a college course over the summer. I knew immediately that I needed to study psychology. I decided that I would dedicate as much time as humanly possible to understanding the complexities of the human mind and experience with the underlying hope that I would be able to translate the silence of my family and peers. I spent the few weeks between the ending of school and the beginning of the summer course reading the psychology textbooks my parents had acquired during their time in university in their entirety. I then dedicated the rest of my summer pouring myself into learning as much as I possibly could from this course. When it came time for me to choose a college major a few years down the road, I had no doubts about what I would be studying. The field of psychology allows us to understand the silence and navigate the unspoken pains of the people around us. Psychology helps to put a name to the feelings so big that many black and brown children are taught to ignore from the time that they are small. Studying and understanding the essential human behavior and development gives us the tools to break the chains on our community that we often hold upon ourselves. I hope that as I continue to study within this field that I will help break the chains of silence that are so prevalent within minority communities. I pray that by breaking the barriers myself and being vocal about my personal journey, that even if the generations to come are never able to speak of their silent hurts, they will at least be able to see that they can be overcome. I intend to work in the corporate sector of psychology and found a nonprofit dedicated to mental health awareness and education within minority communities as well as educational and enrichment resources directed towards healing, rehabilitation, and advancement of those communities. The intention is that through breaking the chains of silence within minority communities and providing care for the mental health struggles that often hold us back, voices will be empowered and minds will be opened to all of the open doors and opportunities to overcome that surround us.