User:Eleos776/Miss Chinatown USA

Criticism
The signature evening gown is a tightly fitted cheongsam, chosen by the New Year Festival's organizer, H.K. Wong, to exoticize the contestants as "the perfect blend of East and West" and draw tourists to Chinatown. Although the earlier (1948–1953) local beauty pageant featured western dresses, author Chiou-Ling Yeh asserts the new pageant served to reinforce stereotypes: the choice of the cheongsam reinforced sexualized perception of Chinese women through its extra high-cut side slit, and early publicity emphasized the value of traditional, patriarchal ideals for female behavior, referring to the Three Obediences and Four Virtues. The winners were seen as cultural ambassadors to bridge the gap between Chinese-American immigrants and western society; in one instance, a restriction on the use of firecrackers in San Francisco was lifted after San Francisco Mayor George Christopher kissed the reigning Miss Chinatown in 1956.

Additional criticisms of the pageant, including it being not truly representative of the Chinatown population, reinforcing Caucasian beauty standards, and perpetuating the model minority stereotype have arisen since its origins. Pagents affirmed the model minority stereotype by affirming the importance of education as well as how woman were expected to assimilate into society. Furthermore, participants were not even expected to speak Chinese, the only part of them that was distinctly Chinese was their bodies. The Holiday Inn Chinatown sponsored one of the 1971 contestants; as a publicity stunt, she jumped out of a giant fortune cookie for the opening of the hotel, later drawing jeers and eggs when she rode on a float during the Lunar New Year parade.

Performance artist Kristina Wong has crashed numerous events in costume as the character "Fannie Wong, former Miss Chinatown 2nd runner up" since 2002; parodying the stereotype of a quiet, demure Asian woman, Wong describes Fannie as a "cigar chomping, leg humping fast talking beauty queen" that was "often escorted out of venues". Wong grew up in San Francisco idolizing Miss Chinatown, but admits she was "nervous because she did not know how she'd transition from being 'completely sexually repressed and totally awkward' to someone who was beautiful and self-assured. 'I felt like such an embarrassment to my family.