(CNN) Actress Kelly Marie Tran, who appeared in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi," made headlines in June when she deleted her Instagram post after receiving racist and misogynistic comments, but she's not letting her trolls have the last word. 

Tran wrote a powerful op-ed for the New York Times, about the harassment she faced and how she's moving forward from it. 

She admits, however, that initially, the deluge of hateful rhetoric wasn't easy to deal with. 

"It wasn't their words, it's that I started to believe them," Tran wrote. " Their words seemed to confirm what growing up as a woman and a person of color already taught me: that I belonged in margins and spaces, valid only as a minor character in their lives and stories." 

Tran, 29, is the first woman of color to have a major role in a "Star Wars" film. 

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