This Teen Just Became The First Indigenous Queen Of Mexico’s Nayarit Beauty Pageant
This year’s Nayarit State Fair will be historic. For the first time, the festivity, which takes place from March 7 to March 31 in the western Mexican state, will have an Indigenous woman as its queen.
Yukaima González, an 18-year-old college student from the Wixárika community in the mountainous municipality of Guadalupe Ocotán, won the beauty pageant of the Feria Nayarit.
González, who said she was inspired to compete after following the recent success of Yalitza Aparicio, an Oscar-nominated Indigenous woman who came to fame after starring in Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma,” hopes her win will similarly empower her own community.
“In my community, we are losing our [indigenous] language, and residents are ashamed of wearing their traditional clothing. I’m here so that they’ll feel proud of our roots and who we are,” González, who studies physical education and sports at the Universidad Autónoma de Nayarit, told El Universal.
According to Mexico News Daily, she impressed the judges during the “traditional dress” round, where she donned a beaded ensemble that exhibited the Wixárika god’s eyes. Her proposed social project, which would provide support to Nayarit’s isolated mountain communities to open artisanal bakeries to support self-employment and community well-being, was also impactful.
In a post on Twitter, the barrier-breaking queen thanked those who were celebrating her win. “Gracias,” she wrote, sharing a photo of her crowned as the “Reina Feria Nayarit.”
González was one of 15 contestants from each of Nayarit’s districts to compete, and she was one of two Indigenous contestants — a first for the fair. The second hopeful was Adriana Díaz López, a Cora indigenous woman from the municipality of Nayer.
(h/t Remezcla)
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