Hawai‘i Ethnic Pageants Are More Than Just Beauty Contests
Ethnic beauty pageants have long been a staple of Hawai‘i’s diverse cultural history. Over the years, though, they’ve had to evolve to fit the changing times.
February 10, 2015
Left: Miss O‘ahu Filipina Lovely May Orsino. Right: The 65th Narcissus queen Brittany Lee in Chinatown. Photos: Mark Arbeit
After marveling at Chinese acrobats in Shanghai and walking along the Great Wall of China in Beijing, Brittany Lee went on a side excursion to a small village in the province of Lung Doo that left the biggest impression of her trip to China.
Why the Cherry Blossom Festival’s Controversial Ancestry Requirement Change Still Matters 20 Years Later
With the crowning of the 67th festival queen and court on Saturday, March 16, we take a look back at 1999, a pivotal year for the historic event.
March 13, 2019
Left: Violet Tokie Niimi was crowned Honolulu’s first Cherry Blossom Festival queen in 1953. Right: Vail Matsumoto became the first non-full-Japanese woman to win the title in 2000. Photos: Courtesy of Cherry Blossom Festival
K
eith Kamisugi didn’t expect the change to lower the Cherry Blossom Festival’s blood-quantum requirement to go over well. After all, since the festival began nearly 50 years ago, only contestants who were full Japanese could compete for the coveted queen title. That all changed when Kamisugi, in his 20s at the time, ran for president of the Honolulu Japanese Junior Chamber of Commerce, the group that organizes the festival. With that bold platform, he won and began his one-year