Miss USA, Rima Fakih
Rima Fakih was born in Southern Lebanon to a Shi’a Muslim family. As a child she attended a Catholic school near Beirut and when no one was looking, she would dress up in her mother’s clothes and heels, put on some lipstick, stand in front of the mirror and pose like she just won a beauty pageant!
In 1993, when Rima was only 6, the Fakih family was forced to move to New York to escape the effects of the Lebanese Civil war. They opened a restaurant in Manhattan. Life was good for some time but then the war they tried to escape somehow followed them across the seas; when the 9-11 attacks happened, the restaurant declined and Rima Fakih’s family suffered threats from Americans who could not trust anyone with Arabic roots.
I wonder how she feels like representing the very same people who persecuted her family and ran them out of business…
The Fakih family moved to Michigan where they were embraced by a big Arab-American community in Dearborn and it was there where Rima Fakih finished her education in Economics and Business Management. She hopes to continue her education and get a degree in Law after she is done with Miss USA.
Rima Fakih joined her first beauty pageant at age 19 and placed 4th Runner-up in the Miss Wayne County. In 2008, she flew back to Lebanon to represent Michigan in the Miss Lebanon Emigrant beauty contest where she placed 3rd. Her first major victory was in the Miss Michigan USA pageant in September last year; Rima Fakih is believed to be the first ever Arab-American to hold the title. Unfortunately, that claim remains a claim as the Miss USA organization admits that it doesn’t have complete records of previous winners.
While the Fakih family may be Muslim, they are open enough to celebrate Christmas the American way with Santa Claus and gifts under the tree. The accusation from one blogger that Rima Fakih has connections to terrorists remains unfounded – her house has an American flag at the porch and as you enter, on display are the Bible and Koran side by side. Some of her family members have married Christians. So, for now we can safely assume that although Rima Fakih is the ‘bomb she’s not going to explode any minute and take down a few skyscrapers with her.
But she did take down the house in a pole-dancing contest for a radio station. Too bad the photos taken of Rima Fakih in that pole-dancing contest were quite unflattering. Her role in the indie short “Throbbing Justice,” a film with sexual undertones, is also a departure from her new image as Miss USA 2010. But just to let you know, she did not strip or do anything wild in the movie which has been described in this blog as raunchy with bad acting.
In spite of the controversies hounding Miss USA 2010, Rima Fakih continues to be the Obama of the beauty pageant industry, promising hope of a world where people of different races and religions can live together in harmony.
That’s just soooo “World Peace, ” isn’t it?
Miss USA 2010 Rima Fakih is on the shortlist of Adventures of a Beauty Queen…
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