Dancing for Diversity
Hula, salsa and “Cielito Lindo” were all part of the culturally-rich Miss Diversity Pageant held at the Taggart Student Center Ballroom Thursday night
The pageant incorporates all the aspects of a normal beauty pageant, but adds an international zing.
Sponsored by the Hispanic Student Union and Associated Students of Utah State University, this is the third annual Miss Diversity Pageant.
Hosted by Mitchell Cooksey and Vivana Ramirez, the pageant tailors to the idea of promoting cultural differences.
“I’m from New York and all the schools there are immersed in diversity. In our commons, there were flags from every single country represented in our high school…I’d like to see something like that happen at Utah State University,” said pageant winner Amanda Garcia.
The competition was stiff with contestants representing the Navajo, Polynesian, African and Hispanic cultures.
This year’s competitors included Maysun Ali, Cassandra Begay, Ebony Berrest, Amanda Garcia, Fa’aa’e Lata, Evonnie Muyandu and Paige Montgomery.
Each contestant’s talent reflected their cultural heritage through costume and performance.
Berrest explained that the Hula dance from Hawaii incorporates five main aspects: the sway, feet, hips, hands and eyes. All of which work together to tell a story or portray emotion.
Paige Montgomery, the contestant representing her San Francisco heritage, used the pageant to satisfy an unfulfilled dream of singing the National Anthem at a sporting event.
After her performance, Paige admitted that it wasn’t the performance she had always dreamed of, but she had a lot of fun messing up in front of everyone.
“Let’s just say that cattiness back stage transfers on stage,” Ali said about her seductive Middle Eastern dance.
Maysun’s dance was based on the idea of two ladies competing for all the attention.
Other talents included a Navajo sign language performance from Begay called, “Go My Son.”
Before her performance, Begay explained that she came from the Bigwater Clan, and her maternal heritage reigns from the cliff-dwelling people, while her paternal heritage is Mexican.
Muyandu performed an African dance and Lata performed a traditional Samoan dance, adding her own hip-hop flare to the end.
Although the talents were impressive, the most trying aspect of the pageant were the questions from a star-studded judging panelist. The judges included Juan Franco and Chuck Johnson.
The questions caused the girls to relate cultural diversity to their own life and elaborate on how diversity impacts the world.
“I’ve traveled a lot, and people are so loving and accepting; it’s made me want to be that way in my own life. In all of the places I’ve been people give up the last food they have, I think that’s something we all need to take into our lives, and show that to other people,” Muyandu said.
Muyandu was asked to relate how her experiences with other cultures has changed her view of the world.
“I value cultural diversity, it makes my life more meaningful. I’m able to get along with a lot more people and I think if people were to realize that culture is important then we’d be able to get along a lot better and we’d be able to be a lot more open-minded,” Begay said. Begay was asked why she thought cultural activities were important by Franco.
Although the questions and contestants were very different, all the contestants were unanimous in the idea that cultural diversity is a very important aspect of each of their lives.
While judges tallied votes, there was a vocal performance by Ernesto Lopez, who sang songs like “La Bamba” and “Cielito Lindo,” much to the audience’s pleasure.
The pageant was also part of a special weekend for high school seniors called Open Campus Day.
The seniors have the opportunity to spend the weekend in USU dorms, interview for scholarships and participate in activities like the Diversity Carnival.
Senior Open Campus Day is an opportunity for Multi-Cultural Services to recruit students to USU and increase diversity on campus.
“It’s really cool because, in high school, you don’t get this much diversity. It makes me want to attend USU,” said Layton High School senior Lindy Hoellein.
“Culture has always been such a great thing for me. Especially being here, when people come from different cultures to USU it’s a beautiful thing,” Montgomery said.
Although talent, beauty and charisma were important to the contestants, it was apparent that the heart of the pageant was embracing differences and celebrating the union of multiple cultures.
“I understand that people have their own diversity about who they want to be and what they want to do, if we’re all going to have diversity we need to have respect for each other,” Lata said.
Amanda Garcia is this year’s Miss Diversity- with first runner-up Cassandra Begay, second runner-up Maysun Ali and third runner-up Fa’aa’e Lata.
-dpitcher@cc.usu.edu
Amanda Garcia and Tom Fulmer perform a salsa dance in the Miss Diversity Pageant Wednesday night. (Photo by Becky Blankenship)
Sandra Begay anticipates her question from the judges at the Miss Diversity Pageant. (Photo by Becky Blankenship)