Once upon a time in a not-so-far-away land, there lived a young girl. This young girl named Veronica had grown up in the town of Haling Cove all of her life. She had only ever traveled out of the town into the bustling city of Warrington a few times, and to her, it felt like home.

Now the city of Warrington was a city full of life, diversity, and varying cultures. Warrington was the city people moved to, to find people who accepted and appreciated the diversity the world had to offer. Warrington offered plenty of opportunities for people to become educated in varying cultures.

Diversity was sadly not a strong suit of Haling Cove, much to Veronica´s dismay. Being one of the only people of color in her school had made her feel isolated, and lonely in her experiences. Her peers never seemed to notice how she felt. She often was left feeling as if there was something wrong with her. 

Veronica´s peers never treated her differently in obvious ways, but sometimes there were things that they said or ways that they acted that caused her to feel uncomfortable in her skin. Such as when her classmate Billy asked her, ¨why don't you act like a black girl?¨This question stumped Veronica because there is no way to act like a certain race.

¨Why don´t you act like a black girl?¨

Moments like the one Veronica had with Billy were fairly common at her school, and those moments slowly began to make her feel like her skin color was something she was supposed to be ashamed of. Veronica felt as if she had been born with eight pairs of eyes instead of one. Her self-image and self-confidence deteriorated because of it.

Veronica´s self-doubt and lack of self-confidence started to become more obvious to her parents after she began to withdraw, and make comments steeped in self-doubt and self-deprecation in regard to her skin. One day after Veronica came home from school, her parents approached her in the kitchen to discuss what had been troubling her recently.