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US beauty pageant embraces diversity
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The Miss America pageant has crowned its first winner of Indian heritage.
Moments after winning the 2014 crown, 24-year-old Nina Davuluri described how delighted she is that the nearly century-old pageant sees beauty and talent of all kinds.
“I’m so happy this organization has embraced diversity,” she said after winning the crown in Atlantic City, New Jersey’s Boardwalk Hall. “I’m thankful there are children watching at home who can finally relate to a new Miss America.”
The native of Syracuse, New York, wants to be a doctor, and is applying to medical school, with the help of a US$50,000 scholarship she won as part of the pageant title.
She is the second consecutive Miss New York to win the Miss America crown, succeeding Mallory Hagan, who was selected in January when the pageant was still held in Las Vegas. The Miss America Organization will compensate Hagan for her shortened reign.
Davuluri’s victory led to some negative comments on Twitter from users upset that someone of Indian heritage won the pageant. She brushed those aside.
“I have to rise above that,” she said. “I always viewed myself as first and foremost American.”
Her grandmother said she cried when she saw the news on television.
“I am very, very, happy for the girl. It was her dream and it was fulfilled,” 89-year-old V. Koteshwaramma said from her home in Vijaywada city in India.
She said there are numerous doctors in the family, both in the US and India, and that if her granddaughter wants to become one “I am sure she will do it.”
Davuluri had planned to go to the scene of a devastating boardwalk fire in the New Jersey communities of Seaside Park and Seaside Heights yesterday afternoon. But pageant officials canceled the visit after learning Governor Chris Christie was making cabinet officials available to meet business owners victimized by the fire.
Davuluri will visit at an unscheduled future date, pageant officials said yesterday.
First runner-up was Miss California, Crystal Lee. Other top 5 finalists included Miss Minnesota, Rebecca Yeh; Miss Florida, Myrrhanda Jones, and Miss Oklahoma, Kelsey Griswold.
In the run-up to the pageant, much attention was given to Miss Kansas, Theresa Vail, the Army sergeant who was believed to have been the first Miss America contestant to openly show tattoos. She has the Serenity Prayer on her rib cage, and a smaller military insignia on the back of one shoulder.
Vail won a nationwide “America’s Choice” vote to advance as a semi-finalist, but failed to make it into the Top 10.
In a Twitter message on Sunday before the finals began, Vail wrote: “Win or not tonight, I have accomplished what I set out to do. I have empowered women. I have opened eyes.”
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