Zara Daugherty, 6 years old, was talking to her therapist about a difficult subject in her life: her relationship with her father.

The therapist suggested that they write a story and draw pictures to help her work through what she was feeling, so Zara wrote about a time when her father didn't show up to spend the day with her when he had promised to. She illustrated it with a picture of herself waiting on the front porch.

On the drive home from therapy, Zara told her mom, Mia Daugherty, about the little book she'd made. Mia asked her how she felt about it.

"Mom, I want to write a real book," Zara said. Mia assured her it was a real book, but her daughter objected.

"No, Mom. I want my book on Amazon, and I want my picture on the back."

Mia was worried about the pushback that might come if her young daughter shared such a personal story. She suggested writing about a less sensitive topic: What about a book on what her perfect day with her dad would look like, or about an adventure she and her mom had together?

But Zara insisted that her book had to be for other kids like her -- hurt by a parent's broken promises. Her mother relented. She contacted a children's author, who connected her to an illustrator. She created a GoFundMe to pay the illustrating and publishing costs.

A year later, Zara's book, "Broken Promise," came to fruition.

Zara, who will enter third grade in the fall, had a book signing party on her 8th birthday in May.

"I wanted to have my own story," she said. The book combines different real-life experiences and describes how Zara dealt with her sadness and anger on a day when she waited for hours and her father failed to show up.

She said her therapist taught her various tools she could use to deal with her emotions, like taking deep breaths or squeezing a toy. In her story, she screams into her pillow, which was another strategy she had learned in therapy. The story takes a happier turn when her mother plans an outing for Zara with her grandfather and uncle.

Mia said she learned over the years to have a Plan B in place on the days her daughter expected a call or visit from her dad, just in case.

Cheri Tillis, CEO of Fathers and Families Support Center in St. Louis, commended Zara for putting her story out there to help other children -- and possibly even their fathers. The nonprofit offers fathers parenting classes, legal services, employment workshops and counseling to help them be more involved in their children's lives.

Tillis points out that data shows children without an involved father are at greater risk for teen pregnancy, dropping out of school and other negative life outcomes. Some fathers of little kids might think their children are too young to remember or be upset by their absence, but they are completely wrong, she said. In fact, the disappointment and pain can be even more crushing for young kids, who can't yet understand and process situations like adults.

"Those unfilled promises can have a negative effect on a child's self-esteem," Tillis said. "They begin to wonder, 'Why isn't my father following through with these things he tells me? Is it something about me? What's wrong with me ... or (is it that) other things are more important?'"

Tillis said some fathers who are struggling financially feel they cannot see their child because they don't have money for gifts or outings.

"Being a dad is about the time spent," she said. "It's about having opportunities to bond and build the relationship ... It's not the money that children expect."

Other fathers, including those who are not married to the mother of their child, may not realize they have legal avenues to get visitation rights. That's a process the center helps fathers navigate.

I reached out to Zara's father to ask him about her book. Initially he said that he wanted to get "the truth" out about the situation. When I said I wasn't going to get into the contentious relationship between him and Zara's mother and just wanted his thoughts on the book, he didn't respond to further calls or messages.

Zara said she wants other children to know that it's still possible to have fun even though you get sad sometimes. Most importantly, "Don't let anybody get in your way of being great."

Wise words from an 8-year-old author.

Dr. Mano Patri immediately thought about two patients she treated years ago when she heard the news about a recent graduate from her children’s high school in Chesterfield, Missouri.

Sai Varshith Kandula, 19, a Marquette High School graduate and immigrant from India, was arrested in Washington, D.C., on May 22 after ramming a rental truck into barriers near the White House. Kandula allegedly grabbed a Nazi flag from the rented U-Haul just before he was apprehended. Federal prosecutors filed a memo last week in support of keeping him jailed before trial, citing passages from Kandula’s journal in which he described taking over the government and harming others. In it, he praised Adolf Hitler as a "strong leader," the memo said.

Along with last month’s Mexican mass shooter at a mall in Allen, Texas, with purported neo-Nazi views, this incident suggests that racist organizations and websites are pulling in some supporters from communities of color.

At first glance, it makes little sense why a person of color would join a movement that espouses that they are less than white people. But these sites and those who radicalize others may be addressing other unmet needs in vulnerable people.

Patri said she found the incident involving Kandula “horrifying, but I hate to say it, not surprising.”

In her work as an infectious disease specialist with SSM Health, she has treated two African American patients who had swastika tattoos and identified themselves as part of neo-Nazi movements. In conversations with these patients over a few days, she asked them to help her understand what attracted them to this ideology.

“It came down to a sense of belonging,” she said. One of them explained to her that it was like being in an army that has just one leader. They saw themselves as soldiers listening to a captain.

“There is a need to feel understood, to be heard ... with a lot of the isolation that has occurred, even post-COVID, you find these groups that speak to you,” she said. Plus, mental illness remains undiagnosed and untreated at higher levels in immigrant and minority communities.

“If you don’t know where you belong or where you fit in, it can be easier to retreat to social media and find someone who understands you,” she said.

Dr. Siresha Samudrala, who works in rehabilitation and physical medicine in St. Louis, said she knows a few Indian American teens who listen to personalities with extreme right-wing and white nationalistic views. She was approached by Indian parents who asked her to speak to their son, who they worried might be getting indoctrinated.

“I had some hard conversations with him,” she said. He felt rejected by the South Asian community. Researcher Jennifer Lee has studied the issues around identity and belonging among various ethnic and racial groups.

“When we ask Asian Americans whether they feel they completely belong and are accepted in the United States, a mere 29% of them feel this way. Indeed, Asian Americans are the least likely to feel they completely belong compared to Black Americans (33%), Latino Americans (42%), and white Americans (61%),” she published last year.

The research found that the feeling of not belonging is especially acute among Asian American women -- who are twice as likely to be interracially married than Asian American men -- and young adults who are more likely to be U.S.-born.

Samudrala suggested that feeling rejected by your own community, which in itself is a minority group, can amplify feelings of alienation and isolation.

As a group, Indian Americans tend to be more politically liberal than conservative. The Indian American Attitudes Survey -- conducted between Sept. 1 and Sept. 20, 2020 -- found that 72% of registered Indian American voters had planned to vote for Joe Biden and 22% had planned to vote for Donald Trump.

A far-right affiliation among Indian Americans is unusual, although not unheard of.

For more recent immigrants and older generations, there may be similarities between the escalating Hindu nationalism in India and right-wing populism in America. And for affluent Indian Americans who vote with their socioeconomic and class interests, there can be a draw to conservative politics.

But for younger people, it may be a more complex and subtle drift toward extreme right-wing ideology. Far-right groups exploit algorithms on social media sites, including YouTube, that target the young male demographic. It’s surprisingly easy to fall down a rabbit hole on the internet that leads to videos about feminists destroying America and other misogynistic, conspiratorial propaganda.

There’s also a segment of younger Asian Americans who are strongly opposed to affirmative action, which they see as hurting their chances of admission to top universities. Watching one video or clicking on a single link leads to more and more extreme content online.

No information has been released on how Kandula became interested in neo-Nazi ideology or about his mental health status. Patri cautioned against jumping to conclusions or targeting his family.

“It’s easy to criticize without knowing the story,” she said.

She has focused on talking to her own children about how they are processing and feeling about the incident. She wants to destigmatize seeking care for mental help within the community.

“Could this have been prevented?” she asked. “I don’t know. This could be his cry for help.”

When teachers would post class rankings, Amie Fornah Sankoh would find herself in the same dreaded position year after year: dead last.

Grades were shared publicly in Sierra Leone, where Sankoh grew up during a civil war fueled by blood diamonds. The humiliation and pity she received made her believe she was unable to learn; broken.

In fact, Sankoh's poor academic standing had nothing to do with her intelligence or abilities.

When she was 3 years old, she contracted malaria and spiked a high fever. She recovered from the infection but lost hearing in both ears. In Freetown, where she lived, there was no deaf culture, no one to teach her sign language. Sankoh was essentially cut off from communication.

In 2003, when she was 12, her parents sent her to America to live with relatives, hoping that a medical procedure might restore her hearing. She did not qualify for the procedure, but what she learned in school over the next years changed what she imagined was possible and altered the course of her life.

Sankoh learned American Sign Language.

Finally, at age 15, she had a way to communicate.

"That's when I first realized I could learn," she said. "I was shocked."

Her high school provided a sign language interpreter for her classes. Sankoh took multiple English classes to catch up. She excelled in math and science, and became fascinated by chemistry.

"I could only learn math growing up because it was a very visual subject," she said. After graduating from high school, she chose to attend the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute for Technology.

"RIT is where I was really able to learn the most and expand my research," she said. Just as important, she learned how to advocate for herself. Those skills proved vital when she was accepted into a doctoral program at the University of Tennessee -- the only deaf student in its Department of Biochemistry and Cellular and Molecular Biology.

Students with disabilities continue to face obstacles in schools despite the passage of three major federal laws -- the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, Section 504 and the Americans With Disabilities Act -- designed to protect their rights. Even though the number of students with disabilities enrolling in college has been steadily growing over the past several years, their graduation rate still lags significantly behind their nondisabled peers. They make up an even smaller percentage of graduate schools: Those with disabilities make up about 8% of graduate students, according to data by the National Center for Education Statistics.

Those challenges are far greater for Black students with disabilities, who are more likely to face disciplinary sanctions in schools than their peers. Stark racial disparities persist in graduate education, a product of generations of systemic inequities in American education. In fact, scant research or data exist on the outcomes of Black graduate students with disabilities.

When Sankoh arrived at the University of Tennessee, she could tell that some of her peers doubted whether she belonged in the rigorous doctoral program.

She struggled to understand the interpreter assigned to her courses because of the specialized scientific background needed to even communicate certain concepts. She recalled a lecture about mass in which the interpreter completely misunderstood the scientific vocabulary.

Many times, she sat in classes for hours, completely lost.

"A teacher wouldn't think I was paying attention in class because I was watching the interpreter," she said. It was frustrating and took hours of studying on her own, working with a mentor and seeking one-on-one help outside of class.

"When a deaf person asks me, 'How did you survive?' I say it was a lot of work, a lot of patience and a lot of perseverance," she said.

There were times when she wanted to give up. The first time she had to give a presentation in front of her classmates, she felt sick to her stomach.

But she persisted.

On April 20, Sankoh, 32, defended her dissertation.

She is the first deaf Black woman to earn a doctoral degree in a STEM field.

Sankoh said reaching this elite academic milestone feels surreal. Her family is still in Sierra Leone -- proud of her and stunned by what she's accomplished.

She thinks back to that student in Africa who always ranked last in her class.

"I wish I could tell her that there's nothing wrong with you," she said. "I wish I could go back and tell that child, 'You are stronger than you think.'"