Miss Asian America

Miss Asian America (founded August 1, 1987[1]) is the longest-running ethnic pageant in the United States of America. Initiated as a part of the Asian Heritage Celebration for the County of Santa Clara in 1987, the pageant's top titleholders include the former First Lady of the State of Washington, Mona Lee Locke, wife of Gary Locke[2] and Fala Chen, the 2013 winner of the Huading Award for Best Female Drama Actress.

Miss Asian America Pageant

Type	Beauty Pageant
Website	https://www.missasianglobal.com/

Background

A 2010 book by cultural anthropologist Afia A. Ofori-Mensa studied the relationships among race, gender, and U.S. national identity using the Miss Asian America Pageant. She found that "panethnic pageants like Miss Asian America" which came of age in the 1980s plays an important role in the constitution of national identity "through ideal femininity, in both embodied and rhetorical ways." For the Asian American community, the Miss Asian America Pageant is the "only cultural institution annually endowing one woman and her racialized, gendered, and classed body, the power to represent an entire nation."[3] The pageant remains one of the few national events that allow for a frontal display of non-mainstream ethnic culture for the American public where contestants wear cultural clothing and reinvigorate heritage ties through community-based projects, service learning, and presentations in their heritage language.[4]

Cultural integration and the introduction of neoliberal values have also been examined through the prism of the Miss Asian America Pageant extensively by women's studies scholars. Professor Nhi T. Lieu, in studying Miss Asian America pointed to the pageant's role in promoting capitalism and neoliberal values presented within traditional contexts such as the utilization of the Vietnamese women's garment known as the ao dai. Lieu adds that the role of technology in beauty pageants also enabled the introduction of modernity and consumer goods to many Asian American households in attendance at pageant events.[5]

In reviewing the Cold War legacy and its relationship with Asian American communities in the United States, Ofori-Mensa argues that the Asian American community was able to "utilize pageants strategically, by insisting on the centrality of people of color to U.S. national identity, and by re-imagining the nation as a transnational space where people of color are not systematically excluded."[3]

Titleholders

Year	Miss Asian America
2019-2020	Melanie Wardhana
2018-2019	Sophia Ng
2017-2018	Savannah Pham
2016-2017	Jessica Lim
2015-2016	Stephanie Lin
2014-2015	Jennifer Chung
2013-2014	Emily Duong
2012-2013	Emily Tang
2011-2012	Jessica Lim
2010-2011	Sarah Liu
2009-2010	Amy Chanthaphavong
2008-2009	Louisa Liu
2007-2008	Louise Wu
2006-2007	Jennifer Field
2005-2006	Kollyn Muangmaithong
2004-2005	Buachampoo "Sai" Varee
2003-2004	Charlene Wong
2002-2003	Fala Chen
2001-2002	Caroline Nguyen
1999-2001	Amy Truong
1998-1999	Quyen Tran
1997-1998	Erin Jung
1996-1997	Esther Hwang
1995-1996	Gwendoline Yeo
1994-1995	Jane Park
1992-1994	Ashley Yamada
1991-1992	Christie Hirota
1990-1991	Cindy Chung
1989-1990	Theresa Park
1988-1989	Stacy Yamashita
1987-1988	Delia Ma
1986-1987	Mona Lee Locke
1985-1986	Jeanette Chan

References

1. United States Patent and Trademark Office (February 2, 2011). "Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)". USPTO. Retrieved December 29, 2013.
2. McLaughlin, Kathleen (20 November 2013). "First Chinese-American ambassador to China, much liked, steps down early". Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 29 December 2013.
3. Ofori-Mensa, Afia A. (2010). Beauty, Bodies, and Boundaries Pageants, Race and U.S. National Identity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.
4. Adams, William Lee (22 November 2004). "Pageants' New Look". Newsweek. Retrieved 29 December 2013.
5. Lieu, Nhi T. (2013, Vol. 34 Issue 1, p25-57. 33p.). "Beauty Queens Behaving Badly". Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 34 (1): 25–57. doi:10.5250/fronjwomestud.34.1.0025. Check date values in: |date= (help)