Last month Ariana Miyamota was crowned Japan’s Miss Universe 2015. Her crowning has received much publicity since she is half Japanese and half African American. Traditionally, Japan’s Miss Universes have been fully Japanese, so this new winner has caused controversy. The daughter of a Japanese woman and an African American man, Miyamota was, however, born in Japan. Why, with a Japanese mother and raised in Japanese culture, is she being criticized as not “Japanese enough?”
Miss America 2014, Nina Davuluri, is Indian American, rather than Caucasian like most viewers expected to see, and she was criticized and discriminated against just like Miyamota is today. After Davuluri’s crowning, people tweeted things like “I’m not racist, but this is America.” Is America not a melting pot of cultures, when, in reality, hardly anyone that lives in America is ethnically North American? Doesn’t America claim to be a place where anyone born here can call themselves a proud American? Apparently not, after seeing the reactions from Davuluri’s win.
Miyamota’s case is similar to Davuluri’s. The people of their respective countries, Japan and the United States, are not fully accepting of a national pageant winner of a different race, despite being born in their respective countries.
These incidents point to the presence of discrimination on all levels. In a pageant full of beautiful women with amazing talents, there is still racial discrimination. Miyamota’s entry into Miss Universe Japan was actually an effort to stand up against discrimination and “break down antiquated culture barriers” — she entered after a multiracial friend committed suicide. In an amazing honor to a friend and a protest to a social wrong, she is receiving discrimination herself? While her win is shocking to some Japanese, her actions should be applauded nationally by people hoping to end discrimination and unjust emphasis on race.
Miyamota has responded to this criticism by wanting to fight discrimination even more, especially in her home nation of Japan, one of the most homogeneous places on Earth.
