The negative perception surrounding women who wear sashes and crowns, and are a part of beauty pageants, is stigmatized and spoken of with misogynistic undertones. Their intelligence, social, and political power are diminished, and women are wrongly condemned to ‘bimbofication’.

This is undeniably true for Latina women who are confronted with ideas of Americanization, often needing to pioneer themselves to change beauty standards. Their existence and success in the beauty pageant system have led Latina women to a place of power and the ability to gain upward mobility. I believe that Latinas' expression of agency in pageants is a way to show cultural belonging in a Eurocentric nation and provide a different version of what an American is.

From presidential candidacy to social activism, former pageant winners have gone on to change the fabric of civil liberties. Though their existence is disregarded, women in these positions have the potential to be incredibly influential. Latinas change the Eurocentric beauty standards in pageants, which have been historically exclusionary for women of color. Latinas continue to struggle to compete in pageants and face racial remarks as they contradict white American ideals, but they continue to show up with resilience. Women in these positions are often disregarded, but the power and title they hold carry an immense amount of influence in political, social, and cultural spheres. Women's intelligence and social influence are degraded through the way they are portrayed in beauty pageants, and their intelligence and humanity are simmered down to mere looks. Women have been vilified by the patriarchal society we live in, and the goal of the Zine is to destigmatize women in pageants, not the pageants themselves, with support from digital collections, news sources, and academic journal articles.