Says who? Well, in essence, Donald Trump says who.

The winner of the 2008 Miss Universe Pageant was Miss Venezuela (Dayana Mendoza), making this crown number FIVE for the country that is dabbling with Communist practices and endangering its relationship with Capitalist nations across the world.

Miss Venezuela takes this year's crown

Latinas Make it to the top three

 This post, however, will not delve into Venezuela’s politics–I’ll save that one for a later juncture. I would however like to note that I was sorely disappointed with the outcome of the pageant.

At the outset, I’m not going to engage in a feminist rant about how beauty pageants are superficial and unethical. Everyone is, as far as I’m concerned, capable of discerning the fact that these women do anything and everything to look a particular way. This is their job. The average woman does NOT look like this and many of the women that compete in this thing go through extensive dieting/exercise and cosmetic treatments/plastic surgery over a very long period of time. And quite frankly, despite all these efforts, many of them are ugly and/or tacky anyway. By that same token, it may be said that many of them are physically (I repeat, PHYSICALLY) very beautiful. For all we know, these girls could be skanky bitches who sniff coke to get by on their day-to-day.

May I also remind you that with the billions of people living in the world do you honestly think these organizations executed a fair and equal search for candidates? No. They looked amongst the upper middle to disgustingly wealthy class in search of a candidate willing to commit themselves to becoming the ideal candidate.

Gracias, Dora.

You are currently one of the most famous Latinas in the US of A! Thanks to you, young children ’round the nation can speak basic Spanish and have developed a sound appreciation for learning a second language. Your self-titled, heavily viewed TV show took babies and children by storm as you provided them with a daily dose of your compassionate adventures, braving through forest and jungle alike to save all friends from foes like Swiper. On your free time, you like to play sports like baseball and soccer (surprise, surprise) and you indulge your creative side by practicing the wooden flute (like those Central American dudes who play in the Times Square subway station). And who can forget your best friend and side kick, a monkey named Boots…yeah, always there when you need him. Anyway, Dora, you hit it big with the little ones and you were able to connect with an older braket of children (aged 8-12) when you famously took youtube by storm with your interpretive dance of the hit song, “Chicken Noodle Soup.” (See: http://youtube.com/watch?v=gKLU1BBTe40) Due to your success as a performer on the ‘net, your career took the next intuative step–you hit the stage with a nation-wide tour featuring your culturally educational and inspiring songs and adventures.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that Dora is helping Latinos in the US establish their presence in the world of culture and mass media. Children both Latino and non-Latino are learning the foundations of a second language–Spanish. Not only does this make our non-Latino children more open-minded to different cultures but it helps people to understand that assimilation does not mean restricting Latinos from embracing the Spanish language.  After all, there are few places where signs, menus, letters, and media are NOT bi-lingual.

But damn–this makes me kinda mad. Being able to write “Fluent in Spanish” on the bottom of my resume will soon be a commodity amongst job seekers.

Rosetta Stone, anyone?