I Want To Be Miss America Summary

“Beauty is not just a white girl. It's so many different flavors and shades.” A quote most famously used by Queen Latifah. Julia Alaverze the author of ‘I want to be Miss.America’ faced the struggle of loving and appreciating her beauty when she moved to the United States with her family. Through the short story, she shows the message that If a person doesn’t see their true value they may constantly try to change themselves. It is shown through the literary elements of Imagery, Simile, and Verbal Irony.

“Our skin was diagnosed by the department of beauty as ‘shallow’ we definitely needed some strong foundation to tone down that olive”[pg.39] Alaverse’s use of imagery is spread throughout the story, she uses this tone most when she is describing how much distaste she had for herself, or how she needed to change herself to be like the models seen on the television, magazines or her classmates. Throughout the story, she has an internal urge to be something she’s not. “We complained about how short we were, about how our hair frizzed and how our figures didn’t curve like those on T.V” [pg.39] In both situations, Alaverze is taking the situation

“Tell that to my daughters’ My mother would address the screen as if none of us were there to hear.”[Pg.41] She uses her mother's sarcasm to get her point across to try to teach adolescent girls that beauty is not everything and that beauty will fade with time but your inner beauty just keeps getting better with time. Another example of her use of verbal irony is shown through the passage of, “My mother would inevitably shake her head & say ‘Truth is Americans believe in democracy-even in looks” Through this she tries to explain that there is never a cookie cutter in beauty, that they are fine they way they are, whether it be short with frizzy hair or tall with slick hair, they are beautiful the way they