Stop questioning the New Miss America’s citizenship

On Sunday, a new Miss America was crowned.

This was the first year since 2005 that the pageant was held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where it began in 1921.

During the 2006-2012 seasons, the Miss America Pageant was held in Las Vegas, Nevada and broadcast on ABC, which still broadcasts the pageant each year presently. Miss America is the largest scholarship program for young women between the ages of 18-24, and has a “little sister” program known as Miss America’s Outstanding Teen, which gives girls between the ages of 12-17 the opportunity to compete for scholarships as well.

The new Miss America,  Nina Davuluri,  (Miss New York 2013) is the first woman of Indian-American decent to win the crown.

This has stirred up much controversy because in the history of the organization, someone of her nationality has never won the crown before.

Many people were outraged and expressed their negativity on social media sites by calling Davuluri a “terrorist” and saying that “America is siding with the Al-Qaeda” and “The Arab wins Miss America. Classic.”  I had someone ask me if Davuluri was even from the United States.

What was my answer? Well, I had an opinion of my own.

Being a pageant girl myself, I’ve seen the contract that one is required to fill out in order to participate in the competition and it states that “one must be a resident of the state representing for x amount of time”.

The time fluctuates from state to state. Therefore; it says not a word about needing to be a citizen or not.

Let’s cut to the chase. Davuluri was born on April 20, 1989 in Syracuse, New York to Indian-immigrant parents.

She studied at the University of Michigan and obtained her degree in Brain Behavior and Cognitive Science with honors. Her talent is Bollywood (Native Indian Dance) and the personal platform she will be representing throughout her reign is STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) along with the national platform of The Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.

She stated Monday morning on ABC’s Good Morning America after her crowning that she looks forward to attending medical school after her year of service is complete.

So, what I’m trying to say here is, it doesn’t matter if you’re white, black, purple, Chinese, Indian or Mexican.

If you’re smart, confident, beautiful and charismatic, you should have equal rights to compete in the Miss America Pageant or whatever you decide to put your mind to.

People need to start thinking about what they are going to say before they say it and realize that America is the land of opportunity. It doesn’t matter whether you are brand new to the United States, or if your family has been here for hundreds of years, we are all immigrants to this country.

We also need to think of how others would treat us if we went to their country or how we’d feel if they were talking bad about us that way before they even knew us. Bottom line is: we would be offended too.

At the end of the day, I feel like the judges could have picked any one of the 53 girls that competed for Miss America and would have made the right decision.

I’m glad that Davuluri is confident in her Indian-American heritage and that she is confident in breaking the barriers and be the example for other women of her race to have the courage to compete for the title of Miss America, even with all the criticism she will continuously receive through her year as Miss America.

I look forward to seeing what she can do and how she can change the world for the better as more and more people try to change it for the worse.