After conquering the realms of politics to business to sports, the growing influential Indian American community added a crown jewel to their glory with Nina Davuluri winning the Miss America title for the first time.
"I'm so proud to be the first Indian Miss America," the 24-year-old Miss New York and an aspiring physician told reporters Sunday night shortly after defeating 52 other contestants from all the 50 states, capital city of Washington, the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
"We are making history right here as Asian-Americans. I'm so happy this organisation has celebrated diversity, and, on this stage tonight, there was so much diversity," said Davuluri after last year's winner, Mallory Hagan, another former Miss New York, crowned her successor.
Syracuse resident Davuluri, who was also the first Indian-American to serve as Miss New York, sashayed off with the tiara and the $50,000 scholarship cash that she intends to use to pursue her medical studies by showing off her talent with a "Classical Bollywood Fusion" dance.
The paegeant was televised live by ABC, which picked up the contest again in 2011 after dropping it in 2004 because of a steep ratings decline.
The judges were 2004 Miss America winner Deidre Downs Gunn, the New York Knicks' Amar'e Stoudemire, Lance Bass from the boy band 'N Sync, comedian Mario Cantone, violinist Joshua Bell and television chef Carla Hal
However, all this has not gone down well by some of the audience. Racist remarks are flooding Twitter, commenting on Davuluri's heritage and race. While some of the comments addressed her as an 'Arab', others went to the extent of terming her a 'terrorist'. Tweeters went berserk as they tweeted,
"How the f..does a foreigner win Miss Americal? She is a Arab"
"9/11 was 4 days ago and she gets miss America?"
"nice slap in the face to the people of 9-11 how pathetic"
While some of them think that one has to be "American" to be crowned the coveted title, others accused the judges of failing competitor Miss Kansas for representing American values.
However, Nina brushed off the negativity saying, "I have to rise above that. I always viewed myself as first and foremost American."
dosnt the same thing happen with katrina here . She is called firangi . Simon go back . Accha hai . Khud karo tho chamatkar doosre kare tho balatkar .
ReplyDeleteI read about this on Shekhar Kapur's twitter just a few minutes back. It's very disgraceful. This why I wonder why Indians invest so much in trying to Westernise themselves (bleaching creams, plastic surgeries, name change, culture change, foreign accent faking etc.) when they have such a rich culture/heritage to embrace and share with the world. Gori this, gori that yet you cross the ocean and look at what you are subjected to. It's really sad.
ReplyDeleteshe is beautiful, but i dont think she will get much appropriation in Bollywood
ReplyDeletebecause ppl here only like women who whiten and bleach their face and dye
their hair brown..
How sad..white americans r very sensitive about race/colour/religion especially post 9/11
ReplyDeleteShe is beautiful....hmmmmmm....No
ReplyDelete