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At 5 years old, Gina was parading around the stage with a number pinned to her chest. But as the host of The Little Miss America Competition sang the national anthem, she felt he might have as well been singing,\\u201cYou\\u2019re so whiiiiite, you\\u2019re so bloooooonde.\\u201d Even still, Gina, the toothless, black Shirley Temple, made it to the final round. When she didn\\u2019t hear her number called she looked out into the sea of eager parents and found her parents. Her mother, sullen and disappointed. Next to her mother, sat her father with tears streaming down his face. From that point on all Gina wanted to was to be seen, to fit in and to be beautiful.

By the time Gina was 24, she didn\\u2019t feel too different from that little pageant girl. She got into theater school but her optimism didn\\u2019t last. Soon after getting accepted she was drinking beer for breakfast, failing her classes, and fantasizing about skipping town. That\\u2019s in addition to the issues she was having with her boyfriend\\u2026