Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) are traumas experienced from birth to an individuals' eighteenth birthday. These traumas may involve various physical and psychological stressors that cause elevated levels of toxic stress throughout the body. These traumas tend to impact children and their progress in learning and possibly interfere with typical academic milestones. ACEs also affect a child's ability to control behaviors and create confusion within their brain's ability to recognize threatening or dangerous situations, activating the brain's fight, flight, freeze response at inappropriate times. This study includes reflections of twenty-two former high school students from Camden, New Jersey, that are now adults in their mid-thirties and identify as African American, Latino, and Native American. During the participant's time in high school, Camden was one of the poorest and most dangerous cities in the nation. The former students completed an ACE questionnaire and answered a series of questions in a second survey about their experiences from birth to their eighteenth birthday. The second survey questions focused on the student's self-reported academic behavior if they were identified as special education students, their views on safety in the school, home, and community, and if they recognized traumas and toxic stressors during their youth. The data from the ACEs questionnaire and second survey were analyzed quantitatively using chi-square analyses to assess the relationship between ACEs and the research questions' variables. The data from this study showed high resilience and grit amongst the participants and high levels of college enrollment and completion rates, with those with the highest ACE scores earning Master's Degrees. This study challenges the currently published narrative of minorities and school to prison pipeline by showing minorities with high ACE scores as successful and productive citizens, regardless of childhood trauma and exposure. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]