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174 Conclusion In December 1924 Mérida’s city officials proudly hosted a pageant to choose “the most beautiful woman of our popular classes to wear the gentle dress of the ‘Mestiza yucateca.’”1 In many ways, this festival paralleled Mexico City’s 1921 India Bonita Contest, where the local newspaper, El Universal, sponsored the search for the loveliest indigenous woman—meaning a woman who appeared indigenous in dress and facial features. More specifically, as Rick López notes in his study of the subject, the perfect contestant was a “young pleasant-looking girl of humble position, with dark skin, rounded facial features, heavy eye-lids, and with little or no formal education.”2 Although both Mérida’s and Mexico City’s beauty queens conveyed supposed inherent indigenous qualities, Yucatán’s judges, unlike those in Mexico City, searched for a “Mestiza Bonita” instead of an “India Bonita.” The difference in name reflected a historical shift in the meaning of the term “mestizo” in Yucatán, which by the late nineteenth century referred to the Maya population who dressed in conventional Maya attire.3 Thus, the Yucatecan contest was for Maya women only, and the rules stipulated that the contestants wear the huipil, or traditional Maya dress, to be considered Yucatán’s true Mestiza Queen. Other newspaper reporters referred to the event as a “festival of the workers.”4 In this way, contest promoters conflated class and ethnicity , claiming that a celebration of “the most beautiful [Maya] woman” also commemorated the state’s popular classes. Either way, the municipal president and the event’s publicity clearly emphasized Maya women’s participation. By sponsoring a contest to determine who would carry the grand title of Mestiza Queen, local papers reported that Mérida’s ayuntamiento hoped to promote the area’s classic costumes and the “culture of the woman.” All inhabitants of the state were eligible to vote for the woman of their choice by writing in the name and address of their favorite young Maya woman on a coupon printed in local newspapers. As n n n n n n n n n n n c o n c l u s i o n n 175 her grand prize, the Mestiza Queen received a coral rosary and 500 pesos.5 Moreover, to commemorate the splendid coronation festivities, contest officials provided the queen, her six maids of honor, and their families with free transportation to the capital, as well as food and lodging.6 The stately Theater “Peón Contreras” hosted the grand celebrations, and afterward the entire group, including the queen and her entourage, all piled into cars and drove to the large Centenario Park for a concert. Cheering crowds lined the streets for this festive parade, and the “pleasing sounds” of the 5th Battalion Band of the Public Security Corps accompanied the cars along the route to the park.7 It was no coincidence that the Mestiza Beauty Contest occurred almost exactly one year after Carrillo Puerto’s arrest and subsequent execution in early January 1924. While Yucatán’s Maya beauty pageant reflected a growing national interest in Mexico’s indigenous population, especially among Mexico’s intellectuals, the events nonetheless assumed a unique meaning within the Yucatecan context. Indeed, during the time between Carrillo Puerto’s funeral and the Mestiza Beauty Contest, Yucatán experienced broad reversals of many of Alvarado’s and Carrillo Puerto’s most radical laws, and counterrevolutionary forces drove Elvia Carrillo Puerto and other feminists out of the state in fear of their lives. Although the Socialist Party reclaimed jurisdiction over the state within a few months of the governor’s death, the newly installed government authorities and the regrouped Socialist Party systematically abolished or diminished many of women’s hard-earned political gains. For instance, shortly after assuming office, Yucatecan officials purged women from public positions, and financial support for feminist groups evaporated. In this manner, such policy makers effectively banned women from public roles within decision-making governmental structures and turned back the clock on the state’s more radical directives toward women. As representative of both women and the Maya, the Mestiza Beauty Queen displayed the characteristics that Yucatán’s officials deemed most valuable for all women: she was beautiful, traditional in dress and mannerisms , and nonconfrontational. While the philosophy driving the beauty contest reduced both women and Maya to a particular subset of essentialist qualities considered the most attractive and least dangerous for women, it also...

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