Five years ago, Rachel Wang of Gaithersburg was a new arrival to the United States from China. Now, she's Miss Maryland Teen Talent.
By entering a pageant, Wang hoped to break barriers within her own family. "My parents [thought] they wouldn't take a traditional Asian girl to be a traditional Miss Maryland or Miss America," Wang said. "They [thought] they would pick a girl who is white or who looks similar to white, not like a girl with black hair and black eyebrows. I really wanted to show my parents and other people in the United States that Asians can win."
Wang's mother, Sophia Pang, who owns Magic Health Plus, an acupuncture and acupressure center in Lakeforest mall, said through an interpreter last week that she is supportive of her daughter, but she does not want anything to come in the way of Rachel's studies.
The Miss Maryland Teen competition, a regional competition sponsored by the National American Miss pageant, was held in early August in Virginia, a spokeswoman said.
About 60 women 16-18 competed for the Miss Maryland Teen title. Wang beat 14 other Maryland teens in the talent competition playing the guzheng, a traditional Chinese musical instrument.
Wang learned to play the guzheng about four years ago while still learning English as an ESOL and Honor Roll student at Kingsview Middle School in Germantown. She has played at church events, weddings and local Chinese schools and performed with the Washington GuZheng Society at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Baltimore Museum. (Source: Patricia M. Murret, Gazette.Net. Sep 5, 2007).