Asian Americans in US Beauty Pageants

In order to grow and learn, it is important to acknowledge the prejudice history within pageants. In the early years of pageantry, women of color were often excluded from competing. As an example, Miss America (our country's oldest national pageant) recently celebrated its 100th year of empowering young women, but unfortunately not all women had a seat at the table. For the first 20 years of Miss America’s existence, the rulebook for the competition read "contestants must be of good health and of the white race." With this rule in place, candidates were required to trace and list their ancestry on a biological data sheet. Even with the elimination of this rule in 1940, diversity in the pageant did not change overnight, and the first Asian American Miss America would not be crowned for another 61 years.

While pageants have come a long way in terms of diversity, there is still much work to be done and more “firsts” to accomplish.Let’s take a deeper look into the history of diversity in pageants as well as get to know our current Asian American queens, as well as other queens who came before to pave the way.

In 1962 Miss Hawaii, Macel Wilson, became not only the first Asian American to win the Miss USA crown, but she also was the first person of color to ever hold the coveted title. Macel was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to a mother of Portuguese descent and father of Chinese, Hawaiian, and English descent. Only two days after winning Miss USA, Macel went on to compete at the Miss Universe competition (talk about a quick turn around!) where she placed as one of the Top-15 finalists.

The 80s were an iconic decade that brought us big hair, big sleeves, and our next Miss USA of Asian descent, Mai Shanley. Mai was crowned Miss USA 1984 and prior to being crowned Miss USA, Mai held the title of both Miss New Mexico 1983 (in the Miss America system) as well as Miss New Mexico USA 1984. Mai grew up in a military household with her family being of both Taiwanese and Irish descent.

In 1987 Brook Lee became the first Native Hawaiian to ever win both Miss USA and Miss Universe. Brook Lee is an iconic queen for many reasons, her beauty, her charm, and her authenticity all truly shone the night she was crowned Miss Universe. One of the highlights of that night was her final on-stage Q&A answer, where she was asked “If there were no rules in your life for one day, and you can be outrageous, what would you do?” Brook quickly smiled and with pride stated she would “eat everything in the world.” and not only that, but she would “eat everything twice.” Talk about a relatable queen with an amazing sense of humor.

Angela Perez Baraquio, was crowned in Atlantic City in October 2000. Angela made history as our very first Asian American of Filipino descent to wear the Miss America crown. Prior to being crowned Miss America, Angela held the title of Miss Hawaii and worked as a teacher (she is also the very first teacher to win this crown!) and for her talent she represented her state by dancing the hula.

In 2014, Nina Dauluri was made the 1st Indian American to win the title of Miss America. Despite this competition happening less than 10 years ago today, Davuluri still faced much prejudice upon winning. After being crowned, many people took to social media to criticize Davuluri’s appearance, skin color, race, and nationality. While her win was a win for many young girls across the country who had never seen someone who looked like them wear the Miss America crown, this win was also met with a rude awakening of the prejudice and lack of diversity that still exists in modern day America. Nonetheless, Nina Davuluri held her head up high and championed inclusion and representation in her year of service.

Personally, the 2014 Miss America competition was one of the most influential moments in pageantry for me as a young Asian girl. Seeing Crystal Lee (Miss California) and Nina Davuluri, two Asian American women, holding hands in the final moment of the Miss America competition was something I had never seen before. Moments before being crowned Miss America 2014, Nina even noted that she and Crystal were “making history standing here as Asian Americans so we’re really proud!”

This year is a historic year in pageantry not just on national stages, but also down in Texas! This summer Averie Bishop made history as the first Asian American Miss Texas. Averie is a first-generation Filipina law school graduate, content creator, and nonprofit founder was crowned Miss Texas 2022 this past summer. As a creator and influencer, Averie has amassed over 850k followers on Tik Tok where she shares videos on everything from pageantry, social justice, law school studies, and more! Her platform is “Y’all Means All” and she is committed to advocating for diversity and inclusion! This upcoming December Averie will compete for the title of Miss America in Connecticut. Along with all these incredible accomplishments, Averie is also one of our featured Queenly sellers! Check out her closet HERE!

Now let’s fast forward to this year and get to know our newly crowned queens a little more! Winning a pageant is so much more than just being a pretty face (which let’s face it, all of these ladies happen to be drop dead gorgeous, but they are so much more than that!). Pageant queens know how to walk the walk and talk the talk! A contestant’s education, career goals, volunteerism, charisma, charm, public speaking skills, and other qualities are all taken into consideration when deciding who is crowned. Our current national queens check all the boxes! Let’s learn more about them:

She’s beauty and she’s grace! She’s R’Bonney Gabriel, Miss USA 2022! Our most recently crowned queen, R’Bonney Gabriel, walked away winning the Miss USA crown in Reno, Nevada earlier this month. R’Bonney Gabriel is the first Miss USA to come from a Filipina American background. While her win was unfortunately also surrounded by many conversations about controversy, it’s important to also focus on this win for the Filipinx community. R’Bonney is originally from Houston, Texas and works as both a model and fashion designer for her sustainable clothing line “R’Bonney Nola.” Her mother is from Beaumont, Texas and her father is from the Philippines.

Shopping for your pageant should be a breeze! A queen like you deserves the royal treatment whether she’s buying a new dress online or shopping secondhand. At Queenly, we’ve committed ourselves to promoting sustainable fashion while making it affordable for everyone. Join our community of Queens who have listed outfits in their online closet. It’s as easy as signing up for a free account, snapping some pics, and uploading the details- that’s it!