Even when efforts are made to confront this stigma, people of color are rarely represented, obscuring the complex experiences they endure.
"Stigma makes the experience of people of color with mental illnesses much more difficult because they are dealing with a multitude of other oppressions," Dior Vargas, a self-described "Latina feminist mental health activist" told Mic. "They are made to feel like an 'other' and so this illness would add to this definition of an other."
Vargas is on a mission to change this. She recently launched the People of Color & Mental Illness Photo Project, a moving compilation of images meant to challenge people of color to "speak out and unburden themselves of the shame and secrecy" of living with a mental illness by "changing the way" people of color with mental illnesses are represented, according to her website.