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The India Bonita Contest of 1921 and the Ethnicization of Mexican National Culture

The India Bonita Contest of 1921 and the Ethnicization of Mexican National Culture Page 291 Rick A. López In a 1987 filming of Televisa’s Nuestro Mundo Guillermo Ochoa introduced his guest as La India Bonita María Bibiana Uribe, winner of the first Miss Mexico competition. He drew attention to her colorfully ribboned braids, indigenousstyle outfit, and bare feet, explaining that she chose to come on the show this way so as to appear before the Mexican public just as she had 66 years earlier when she became the first Miss Mexico. But according to the historical record, María Bibiana Uribe never even participated in the Concurso Universal de Belleza of 1921, which crowned the first “Miss Mexico.”1 In fact, the Miss Mexico contest was based on an entrenched canon of classical beauty that precluded consideration of nonwhite contestants. Televisa’s Nuestro Mundo unintentionally conflated the Miss Mexico pageant with the India Bonita Contest, which focused on indigenous contestants and was billed as the “first entirely racial contest.” The two racially exclusive beauty pageants have even been conflated in María Bibiana’s hometown Necaxa, Puebla, where since the 1920s citizens have celebrated an India Bonita festival each May in which they crown two beauty queens, one from the indigenous countryside and one from the http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Hispanic American Historical Review Duke University Press

The India Bonita Contest of 1921 and the Ethnicization of Mexican National Culture

Lopez, Rick A.
Hispanic American Historical Review , Volume 82 (2) – May 1, 2002
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References (65)

Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 2002 by Duke University Press
ISSN
0018-2168
eISSN
1527-1900
DOI
10.1215/00182168-82-2-291
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Page 291 Rick A. López In a 1987 filming of Televisa’s Nuestro Mundo Guillermo Ochoa introduced his guest as La India Bonita María Bibiana Uribe, winner of the first Miss Mexico competition. He drew attention to her colorfully ribboned braids, indigenousstyle outfit, and bare feet, explaining that she chose to come on the show this way so as to appear before the Mexican public just as she had 66 years earlier when she became the first Miss Mexico. But according to the historical record, María Bibiana Uribe never even participated in the Concurso Universal de Belleza of 1921, which crowned the first “Miss Mexico.”1 In fact, the Miss Mexico contest was based on an entrenched canon of classical beauty that precluded consideration of nonwhite contestants. Televisa’s Nuestro Mundo unintentionally conflated the Miss Mexico pageant with the India Bonita Contest, which focused on indigenous contestants and was billed as the “first entirely racial contest.” The two racially exclusive beauty pageants have even been conflated in María Bibiana’s hometown Necaxa, Puebla, where since the 1920s citizens have celebrated an India Bonita festival each May in which they crown two beauty queens, one from the indigenous countryside and one from the

Journal

Hispanic American Historical Review – Duke University Press

Published: May 1, 2002

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