In elementary school, a majority of my history lessons came from School House Rock, a programming series of animated musical educational short films. On the american history tape, one of the songs stood out to me: “The Great American Melting Pot.” The song talks about how almost everyone from America is an immigrant, coming from different backgrounds for a common dream: freedom. It didn’t matter where you were from, what your religion was or the color of your skin, you were just part of the American melting pot. This melting pot idea was showcased at this year’s Miss America pageant when 24-year-old Nina Davuluri, an Indian-American, took the crown.
The 87-year-old contest is not really known for diversity, since the contestants are predominantly white females. Only eight women of color have won the crown in the history of the competition. In fact, it wasn’t until 1970 that African-American women, along with those of other descents, were allowed to compete, and it wasn’t won by one until Vanessa Williams took the crown in 1983.
In 2001, a Hawaiian-born Filipino, Angela Perez Baraquio, took the title as the first Asian-American. The contest has taken baby steps to show off women of different cultural backgrounds. However, when Davuluri was announced this year’s winner, social media bigots reared their ugly heads and decided to try and take down the beauty queen by tweeting hateful messages. Various news sources have pointed out these 700 or so tweets demeaning Davuluri’s win, but the underlying idea of all of them is constantly ignored. Tweets like, “Miss America is a terrorist. Whatever. Its fine (sic),” or “9/11 was four days ago and she gets miss America?” and my personal favorite, “Congratulations, Al-Qaeda. Our Miss America is one of you,” floated around the internet after Nina Davuluri won. It is important to note, however, Davuluri is Hindu, not Muslim. All of these people are claiming that because of her skin color and the area of her family’s origination, she’s a terrorist.
Candice Diah, Bahamian-American winner of Miss Tampa 2014, spoke about the struggles she might have faced while competing for Miss Tampa, “I didn’t encounter any more struggles than any of the other contestants, although I was warned by some peers that it would be significantly more difficult to be successful as a woman of color competing with the typical American pageant queens. I was actually pleasantly surprised to see that the contestant pool was very diverse.” The people tweeting their rude and racists comments don’t realize that these contestants are diverse, that American society is very diverse.
In fact, Diah’s comment on Davuluri’s win summed up the message that Davuluri was trying to make: “By winning Miss America, [Davuluri] made history and her reign is symbolic of the rich diversity rooted in American history. Having an Indian-American titleholder shows society’s step in the direction of embracing that unique facet of our culture, and to me, that’s truly beautiful.” This win was not just for Davuluri or the Indian community in America; it was about America as a whole and the representation of all these different cultures coming to make this diverse country.
But all of the tweeters who criticized Davuluri claim that the win didn’t go to an American. So the question is, what makes someone an American? “True” Americans are the Native Americans, and taking that into account, none of the past Miss Americas look like the Native Americans. In fact, Davuluri looks closer to a Native American than the previous Caucasian females that have taken the crown. Is being an American defined by where you were born? If that’s the case, Davuluri was born in Syracuse, N.Y. Yet, she’s not a “true American” by their standard of ethnicity. By these standards, neither am I. I am a mutt from both European and Native American descent. I was born here in the states, but by no means am I a Native American or European. My family didn’t completely originate here, but neither did a lot of other people.
Davuluri presented herself at the pageant as an Indian-American, and rightfully so. During the pageant, she danced Bollywood Fusion and dressed in a sari. She was proud of her heritage. To the people who criticized her, it was wrong to portray these facets of her culture that weren’t “American.” However, those Americans of European descent are usually allowed to boast about their heritages: how they burn in the sun because they’re part Irish, or how they can hold their liquor because they’re part German and of course how they cook and adore Italian food because they are Italian descendants. That’s fine because they’re of European descent. They’re “typical” Americans. But Miss Davuluri is not. She is not allowed to be proud of her ethnicity because it’s not that of a Caucasian-based country. It is different and the people who don’t understand, like the twitter haters, are afraid of the difference.
It goes to prove how ignorant those that shamed the new Miss America were. Her family is from South Asia, not the Middle East. Just because a few extremists bear the same skin color doesn’t mean that she is an extremist. If they use that sort of logic when disregarding Davuluri as a person, they also have to remember that slave holding plantation owners were white men, Adolf Hitler was a white man and so was Stalin, Mussolini and Lenin. Then one could look into other dictators and extremists such as Kim Jong, Zedong, Dada and Hussein. Bad people do not come color-coded; they come from everywhere. The only similarity between a lot of the dictators and terrible people that I’ve mentioned is the fact that they are all male. Does that make all men evil? No. So, Davuluri is far from a terrorist; she’s just a beauty queen who is proud to have won Miss America.
The only way to really talk about those that belittled our new Miss America is really to mock them like Stephen Colbert did on his Sept. 16 episode of The Colbert Report. “I, for one, could not be happier for her,” he started his segment. “And Twitter, as usual, could not be happy.”
Per usual, the twitter sphere of social media always has to be pessimistic. He also joked, “Miss America 2014, is Indian, and that is an inspiring story, because many moons ago white men came to the New World, conquered the Indian’s land…” The joke is funny, but it also points out the ugly truth that white men did take over the land that did not belong to them and created this country, which points out that the people calling themselves Americans aren’t really the Native Americans who were here first.
So, what does it mean to be American? Well, as far as I’m concerned, if you were born here you’re American. If you came here and wanted a chance to make your mark on the country, you’re American. If you see yourself as an American then you can be an American. It’s not a private club; you can’t decide who joins or not. The United States was founded on the idea that it’s a free nation for anyone that wants a slice of it. There is a naturalization process to make all of this official, but you don’t need it to call yourself American. The label doesn’t have to be linked to belonging to the country but rather belonging to the same ideals that are the foundation of what it means to be “American.”
When it comes to the racists backlash that happened with Davuluri and the emphasis on race that is still so prominent in society, Diah commented, “Because of the nature of pageantry, people are always critical of titleholders. In addition, most naturally, people are reluctant to change and I think the racial backlash Ms. Davuluri received was simply an example of these facts. I do agree, however, it’s disheartening to know that people are willing to put down a beautiful, intelligent young woman, eager and willing to represent her country because of her ethnic background.”
Anyone that is going to be in the public eye is subject to scrutiny and Nina was no different. However, Diah, added “Nonetheless, the beauty of a true pageant queen is that she is strong enough to overcome the inevitable criticism that comes with the crown. I believe that Nina is doing an amazing job with that. She’s an inspiration for other young women to be confident and embrace their individuality.” That sums up a lot of my feelings toward Davuluri’s win perfectly. She points out that Nina is holding her head high and not allowing those that want to bring her down succeed.
The wonderful Miss America 2014, Nina Davuluri, has carried herself with poise and elegance over the hate she’s received. Sadly, she had anticipated it because she got the same response when she won Miss New York. Davuluri commented on the negativity she received to USA Today: “I have to rise above that. I always viewed myself as first and foremost American.” She also pushed aside the hate to see the good that came out of her win, “It’s the first time Bollywood has ever been performed on the Miss America stage and it’s such an honor for myself, my family and the Indian community, as well.” She got a chance to show the world her life and another aspect of American culture that isn’t seen on regular television. It doesn’t matter if a few bad apples didn’t like it; she was proud of it.
I look forward to seeing more of this lovely lady on her platform of promoting cultural diversity. Davuluri really represents the idea of being an American: rising up, persevering and helping to show the beautiful diversity that this country holds. Congrats Nina, you go girl.
Brittney Cox can be reached at brittney.cox@spartans.ut.edu
