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Rosita Ojedo
Miss
California Latina ‘83
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The 80’s
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The 90’s
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The New Millennium
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The idea to organize a pageant for Latin women in
the U.S. on a national level developed simultaneously with the international
Miss Latin America® Pageant, best known worldwide as MISS AMERICA
LATINA®.
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For the first time Latin women were to be showcased in
a program that would recognize their personal attributes beyond their physical
beauty and be awarded university scholarships as prizes. Although this
was not a new concept in the United States, in the world of beauty
pageants in Latin America it was unique.
For the Latin woman in the U.S., this program
represented a chance to compete in a non-traditional pageant that would
welcome their identification with their Hispanic ancestry and finally
award them the opportunity to win on their own merits, without regard to
their ethnicity.
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Elvira Castro of Florida
and Cira Sanchez of Texas
Miami – 1983
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Nationally syndicated TV Show Host and
Pageant Emcee Rolando Barral conducts
onstage interview of Finalist Cira
Sanchez
from Texas at the 1983 Miss Latin America
Pageant in Miami, Florida.
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In 1983 the states with
major Hispanic populations were extended the opportunity to select their
own candidates to the Miss Latin America Pageant, in recognition of the
more than twenty million Hispanics calculated then to be residing in the
U.S. (Now it is more than forty-five million.)
Preliminary pageants were held and the first five
state delegates from Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada and Texas
traveled to the Miss Latin America Pageant in Miami,
Florida, official founding site of this unique international
scholarship pageant system, to compete alongside delegates from eleven
Latin American countries. Remarkably, four of them placed among the ten
Semifinalists that year.
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The quality of these young women was comparable to that
of the national delegates vying for the international crown and for
three years while this project was developing, state directors sent
their delegates to the Miss Latin America Pageant in Miami, where they
consistently achieved high standings in the competition.
Texas sent Cuban-born Cira Sanchez from El Paso in 1983 and she was chosen Second Runner-Up. Also
from Cuba was the 1984 Florida
representative Yolanda Fernandez of Clearwater, who won First Runner-Up
honors from among a total of 29 state and national contestants.
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First Runner-Up Yolanda
Fernandez of Florida
with Miss Latin America 1984
winner Mirla Ochoa of
Venezuela and Mayor John
Sherman of Bal Harbour
(Miami) Florida.
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Venezuelan
superstar Jose
Luis
Rodriguez “El Puma”
with Semifinalist Elvira
Castro of Florida at a
cocktail in Miami honoring
Miss Latin America 1983.
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Repeating the honor for Florida the following year was
Sylvia Hernandez, originally from Uruguay. Arizona’s Lourdes Guevara from
Tucson, of Mexican descent, was also chosen one of the five finalists at
the 1985 Miss Latin America Pageant in Miami.
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Florida’s Sylvia Hernandez
with
guest singer Braulio and Miss Latin
America 1984 Mirla Ochoa in Miami at
the 1985 Miss Latin America Pageant.
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As Pageant Show Host,
Venezuelan TV soaps
star Carlos
Olivier
interviews
Florida’s Sylvia
Hernandez (center) and
Victoria Mauriz of the
Dominican Republic before
they are chosen First
Runner-Up and Miss Latin
America 1985,
respectively, at the
Guzman Center for the
Performing Arts in Miami.
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Sandra Luz Cedillos
of El Paso, Texas is first national winner.
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When the Miss Latin America Pageant is invited to Costa Rica in 1986, the
U.S. state delegates also travel to the Central American site. For the
first time they participate in their own separate competition in San
Jose to select the one U.S. Hispanic national representative to the
International Pageant. This marked the official separation of the state
delegates from the international competition into their own National
Pageant to select “Miss Latina USA” each year.
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Mexican singer Jose Roberto
hosts the first Miss Latina USA
Pageant in 1986 in Costa
Rica
and interviews Marlene
Perez of Florida onstage
before she was chosen
First Runner-Up that year.
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The Costa Rican experience is enjoyed once again in
Santa Cruz, Bolivia, site of the second
National Pageant for U.S. Hispanic women along with the 1987 Miss Latin America Event. Also televised live nationally, the
results are nevertheless carried over for announcement during the
International Finals telecast. To the delight and pride of the host
country, the winner had been born in Cochabamba, Bolivia of a Bolivian
mother and Yugoslavian father.
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Titleholder Sdenka Dobronic
(left) joins a group photo with singer Chayanne at the Miss Latin
America Pageant in Bolivia.
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Bolivian television interviews
Miss Latina USA 1987
Sdenka Dobronic of
Washington, D.C.
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Mexico gives a grand
welcome to the 1989 Miss Latina USA Pageant as
part of the Miss Latin America Event. (Due to Mexico’s Presidential
Inauguration in 1988, that year’s Event
ended up being postponed a few months into early 1989.)
The competition is televised live from the Port of Guaymas
and again no results are announced. The First Lady of the State of
Sonora, assisted by the First Lady of the capital City of Hermosillo,
crowned the winner during the spectacular international telecast of the
Miss Latin America 1989 Pageant—becoming the last time that the
coronation of Miss Latina USA would be held over to the International
Finals as had been occurring since Costa Rica.
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Miss Latina USA 1989 Hany
Valdes and Latin film and
TV
idol Andres Garcia at the Miss
Florida Latina 1990 Pageant.
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Hany Valdes and
Hollywood film star
Edward James Olmos
as guests at the 1989
Miami Grand Prix.
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Hany Valdes and Miss
Latin America 1989
Suzanne Hannaux with
newly crowned Miss
Florida
Latina 1989
winner
Sandra Peebles.
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Miss Latina USA 1989 Hany Valdes
presenting goodwill gift to the Mayor of
Guatemala City Alvaro Arzu.
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