A moment in the past that I would say has changed me would have to be realizing my blackness. Growing up, I was only ever told that I was Puerto Rican and Dominican, and I only lived with the Puerto Rican side of my family which happens to be the white side of my family. Because of this, I was always repressed in expressing my racial identity and always brought down because of the white superiority complex that is very present within Hispanic households, there were many times that family on my Puerto Rican side would make derogatory racial comments towards Black people and clearly did not realize that they are related to someone who is half black. The Dominican side of my family is what you would refer to as Afro Dominican (people from the Dominican republic coming from African ancestry) and because of the fact that I was not around my Dominican family, there was essentially this erasure of black/afro Caribbean culture altogether in my family that I never got to experience as a child growing up, dealing with racism within your own family while realizing that you are a part of the group that they are having racially motivated opinions towards does take a toll on your mental health, and going through high school and being able to experience on my own that part of my identity that I missed out on with friends and their families and how I was educated on the racially-based mistreatment I received growing up because of my mixed-race heritage, it really opened my eyes on how my family needs to decolonize their mindsets and it has given me an opportunity to explore and reevaluate my identity to understand who I am as someone who is half black.