The Alternative Miss America

There’s a new breed of beauty pageants championing the glorious technicolour of cultural and ethnic diversity across the States. Here, we talk to six winners living in Trump’s America.

- Charlotte Philby

Traditional beauty pageants have a long history in the US. But, despite the country’s nonwhite population standing at 38 per cent, there have been only eight non-white winners in nearly a century. Until 1940, one of the strict rules for entry to Miss America stated, ‘contestants must be of the white race’. Today, things have relaxed, but applicants must still be unmarried, aged 17-25 and American citizens. Citizenship is generally defined by birth (meaning you were born in the US, or your parents were) or by process of naturalisation (you’ve lived legally in the States for five years or more).