Miss Asian pageant reflects changing face of Las Vegas
Las Vegas has so many locals and tourists with Asian heritage, the Miss Asian Las Vegas pageant will take over the Palazzo hotel Sunday afternoon in just its second year.
The pageant will feature Asian-heritage gowns, swimwear, talents, and Q&As — and that’s on top of red carpet action Thursday at Tao nightclub, and photo-ops across the hotel Friday and today.
This is the result of the hard work of founder Annie Chang, a financial adviser and marathon runner raising two kids (ages 2 and 3), who sometimes receives photo-texts at 2 a.m. from pageant contestants asking, “Can I wear this?”
What drives a woman to invent a pageant from scratch?
Chang won Miss Chinatown San Francisco 2004 and Miss Asian San Francisco 2003. She then competed in an internationally televised pageant in Hong Kong.
“I never wanted to be a stereotypical pageant girl. I just did it as a dare with one of my friends,” Chang said.
Pageant life introduced her to a huge network of friends, business partners, and an internship for Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“I got to know more about my culture — the Chinese background, where my last name came from, what part of China it came from. All the things I never thought I’d learn, I learned,” Chang said.
Four years ago, she and her husband moved here. She liked Vegas but something was missing.
“I just thought I was losing myself. I had so many friends in California. I tried to find a pageant to help out,” she said.
When she discovered Vegas didn’t have a current Miss Asian pageant, she started one with help from connections in the Bay Area. Last year was her inaugural event at the Tropicana. But then the Palazzo wanted it — which seems like a no-brainer decision for those of us who have watched the Asian-heritage demographic explode in Vegas.
“The community has been so great. I don’t even know what to say,” Chang said. “It’s hard to imagine that in our second year, we’re at the Palazzo.”
It’s not surprising to me in the least.
The other day, I stopped in a suburban restaurant near Cheyenne Avenue and Buffalo Road, and I counted 17 workers and customers — 14 appearing to be either of Asian or Hispanic heritage.
On the Strip, if you speak Mandarin, you walk into sales jobs in luxury stores, because tourists pour in from Asia.
Their purchasing power is huge.
An executive at the Palazzo said it’s “super important” for the hotel — which has a big footprint in Asia — to celebrate Asian culture and a local start-up with a great mission.
“In general, you see the entire Strip moving in the direction of tailoring a lot of offerings to specific cultures, especially in the Asian community, from retail, food and beverage, and entertainment,” said Matthew Kenagy, Palazzo’s executive director of marketing partnerships and strategic alliances.
“I would be surprised if (Vegas) didn’t get even more diverse in the next five years,” Chang said.
Chang also ushers in powerhouse women, such as corporate presidents, to speak to contestants and motivate them “to go out and be something they never thought they could be.”
Last year’s winner, Catherine Ho, and runner-up Elisa Chan, spent the past year circulating through the community, hosting charity events and meeting with kids at the Boys &Girls Clubs.
Ho, a broadcasting student at UNLV, told me she feels like “a completely different person than I was last year,” because she has hosted charity events associated with disaster relief, animal shelters and children with sickle cell anemia, and she’s appeared at art gallery openings and Chinese organization events.
Ho is finding her voice and building self-esteem.
“The metaphor I use is, ‘I use my crown as a microphone,’ ” Ho said.
Ho dreams big: She wants to be as inspiring as Oprah.
“It’s great to see the Asian-American community is becoming recognized here in Vegas, because it’s a giant melting pot here in Vegas and in America,” Ho said.
“And it’s great that a pageant displays Asian cultures and helps educate others about our beautiful cultures without traveling to Asia.”
And just think: This whole Vegas pageant is the result of Chang’s having accepted a friend’s dare to compete in San Francisco a decade ago:
“It turned out to be,” Chang said, “one of the best things I ever did in my life.”
Doug Elfman’s column appears on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Email him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/entertainment/reel.
