UC San Diego

What does it take to be a beauty pageant queen as a Vietnamese American woman? While beauty pageants in general are regarded as an event that attempts to uphold an idealized form of femininity, they are much more complicated when the diasporic community organizes and competes in a diasporic centric beauty pageant. Through introspection, research, and pageant experience, factors like family, racism, language learning, clothing, and the surrounding community influences a sense of self that is worthy to be a pageant queen. These different aspects all contribute to understand what it takes to be a beauty pageant queen, and the comfort or discomfort that comes with participating in a pageant and becoming a beauty pageant queen, or in this case, First Princess.