Ariana Miyamoto was crowned Miss Japan at the Japanese Miss Universe competition on March 12, 2015. After she won the competition she was met with a lot of backlash. The criticism comes from the fact that Miyamoto is half Japanese and half African American. Miyamoto was born in Nagasaki, Japan and Japanese is her first language, but people don’t see a stereotypical Japanese looking girl. Miyamoto has said that she has dealt with this bullying her whole life because of how she looks. Since she is biracial people don’t really know how to categorize her. So, to help bring awareness to how hurtful the bullying can be Miyamoto entered the beauty contest after another biracial friend of hers committed suicide. Now, with the Miss Japan crown her mission is to fight racial prejudice.
When Miyamoto won the title a lot of people went to social media and expressed how confused they were that she won. Since she is biracial people don’t really consider her Japanese, even though she was born in Japan and speaks Japanese. According to Yahoo! News a lot of people said that is should have been someone who was “purely” Japanese. These are the attitudes Miyamoto is trying to change. She understands that is won’t happen overnight and is ready for the uphill battle in front of her.
Miyamoto has called herself stubborn and admited that she will need it for this revolution. She will have to stand firm and strong to keep her stance. “I want to start a revolution,” said Miyamoto in an interview by AFP, reported by rushhourdaily.com! News. “I can’t change things overnight but in 100-200 years there will be very few pure Japanese left, so we have to start changing the way we think.”
Later this year, Miyamoto will be competing for the Miss Universe crown and then she can really start to work on her cause. Here’s to hoping she can start making a change on how people view race. It has to start somewhere and Miyamoto is more than willing to pick up the gauntlet.
Photo:Toru Yamanaka