Julia Alvarez writes “I Want to Be Miss America”, to open people’s eyes to how something as small as a beauty pageant makes a huge difference on a teenage girl’s self-esteem and childhood. Alvarez makes a strong argument using pathos and ethos to sate her claim. She claims that everyday teenagers are trying to mold themselves into what they see in pageants in order to feel beautiful and fit in. Constantly trying to fit into the American ideal of beauty creates low self-esteem in teenagers and makes them feel left out.
Alvarez deals with the ethical issue of misrepresentation of ethnicities in the pageant world. Many people could say that there is representation at the pageant but Alvarez states “if there was a ‘Hispanic,’ she usually looked …show more content…
In her opening paragraph, she describes how her family came to know the Miss America Pageant, and how her family made it into an annual event to watch the contest. The author vividly remembers watching the pageant and “the fifty young women who had the American look we longed for” (Alvarez, 2538). Any teenage girl knows the feeling of trying to fit in, so by using this remark at the end of the paragraph it evokes a feeling of understanding in the reader and sympathy for the author. Alvarez gives the reader a short sense of hope in the middle of her essay when she talks about how the sixties were closely approaching and the beauty ideal shifted to more “ethnic looks” (Alvarez, 2542). Quickly crushing this sense of hope, the author brings up the point that she felt “a gratifying sense of inclusion, but it had unfortunately came too late” (Alvarez, 2542). Alvarez elaborates on this by explaining that she grew up with a different idea of beauty and was used to comparing herself to that idea. So, in turn, when the ideal shifted to be more inclusive, she was used to feeling like no matter what she did she would never meet America’s idea of beauty. At the end of her essay, she concludes by saying “[t]here she is, Miss America, but even in my up-to-date, enlightened dreams, she never wears my face” (Alvarez, 2542). Alvarez book ends her essay creating a sense of sorrow and sympathy for the teenage Julia Alvarez. Leaving the essay like this, Alvarez shows that even though America’s standard of beauty shifted to shine more light on ethnic girls, she still feels as if she could never be Miss America because of her skin
Alvarez deals with the ethical issue of misrepresentation of ethnicities in the pageant world. Many people could say that there is representation at the pageant but Alvarez states “if there was a ‘Hispanic,’ she usually looked …show more content…
In her opening paragraph, she describes how her family came to know the Miss America Pageant, and how her family made it into an annual event to watch the contest. The author vividly remembers watching the pageant and “the fifty young women who had the American look we longed for” (Alvarez, 2538). Any teenage girl knows the feeling of trying to fit in, so by using this remark at the end of the paragraph it evokes a feeling of understanding in the reader and sympathy for the author. Alvarez gives the reader a short sense of hope in the middle of her essay when she talks about how the sixties were closely approaching and the beauty ideal shifted to more “ethnic looks” (Alvarez, 2542). Quickly crushing this sense of hope, the author brings up the point that she felt “a gratifying sense of inclusion, but it had unfortunately came too late” (Alvarez, 2542). Alvarez elaborates on this by explaining that she grew up with a different idea of beauty and was used to comparing herself to that idea. So, in turn, when the ideal shifted to be more inclusive, she was used to feeling like no matter what she did she would never meet America’s idea of beauty. At the end of her essay, she concludes by saying “[t]here she is, Miss America, but even in my up-to-date, enlightened dreams, she never wears my face” (Alvarez, 2542). Alvarez book ends her essay creating a sense of sorrow and sympathy for the teenage Julia Alvarez. Leaving the essay like this, Alvarez shows that even though America’s standard of beauty shifted to shine more light on ethnic girls, she still feels as if she could never be Miss America because of her skin