My husband found this article and thought it would be a good topic since this whole Miss America being Indian thing has generated a lot of controversy due to racist comments by ignorant people. 

Please read this before proceeding: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/asha-rangappa/miss-america-and-the-indian-beauty-myth_b_3941524.html

I like what this writer says in terms of America recognizing that true beauty really has nothing to do with the color of our skin. The fact that a darker skinned Indian woman born and raised in America won really shows how much it doesn’t matter. 

But this is just one aspect of what is being judged. Here is my issue. I’m brown. There’s no getting around it. I’m not dark, I’m not light. I’m just brown. But I also have super curly hair and curves and definitely do not weigh 110 lbs or less. So where is the discussion on the rest of that? 

When I was 18, I remember telling a friend of mine that guys only check out girls with straight hair. At this time, straighteners were just starting to get popular. It wasn’t common yet. And to be honest, I really felt this way. I felt that every guy I came across went for the straight haired, super thin Indian girl. And I can’t say that I didn’t join this crowd. When I was 21, I layered my hair and started wearing it straight on a regular basis. It’s not until recently that I actually realized that I loved my curly hair and it was something that non-Indian people tend to pay a lot of money to get. 

The reason I bring this up is because many Indian girls do not have straight hair. So why aren’t we proud of that being a part of who we are? 

Another aspect of this contest that I’m having issues with is that every single girl is usually under a certain weight. I’m all for healthy. But I’ve always been curvy regardless and even when I was at my lowest weight, I never looked like the women in a beauty pageant. 

Let’s talk about old Indian cinema. The woman in it had big fluffy hair and fantastic curves and held up her own. I’m waiting for that to come back into style. But what happened now? Everyone has perfect hair all the time and these super perfect bodies (“Perfect” is all an opinion as well). So how much of that is America’s influence on Indian’s cinema? 

I guess my point is that while I applaud the Miss America pageant for stepping out of its box and choosing someone who is truly American regardless of her ethnicity, I still have issues with the ideal look that a “beautiful” woman should have. And I think that India has been influenced by America in terms of what that ideal look is. 

When the winner is someone that I can fully relate to, I will feel like things have changed. Here is to one stepping stone at a time.