Congratulations, Nina Davuluri

What I imagine the streets of Edison looked like last night 

As you've probably heard by now, Nina Davuluri of New York was crowned Miss America last night. And that means you've probably also heard the hysterical joy-crying of every South Asian-American person you know. (We get real excited whenever another South-Asian person does something. I was 10 and had no idea what White Castle was when Harold and Kumar came out and I was still excited.)

But, of course, no brown-skinned person's success is complete without the hoards of racist white people showing up. Twitter included such gems as "How the fuck does a foreigner win Miss America? She is a Arab! #idiots", "Miss New York is an Indian.. With all do respect, this is America", and "I swear I'm not racist but this is America." And then of course, there were these ones:

Straight screenshot from Buzzfeed, I'm not even ashamed

You bring up an excellent point, Twitter users @LukeBrasili, @wnfraser, and @anthonytkr. The twelfth anniversary of the September 11th attacks in New York, Washington DC, and Shanksville, PA was just four days ago. Now, I don't remember a whole lot about that day; I remember a silence in my second grade classroom, the panic in my teachers' voices. But mostly I remember the way my parents reacted. In the twelve years since those events, I've never seen them as afraid as I did then.

And they had every right to be. In the week following 9/11 alone, South Asian Americans Leading Together documented media coverage of 645 bias incidents against people of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent. Mosques and mandirs were firebombed and vandalized. Sikh men were repeatedly targeted, harassed, and assaulted for wearing the turbans that ignorant, frightened racists associate with Islam, but actually belong to another faith altogether. Eleven years later, six people peacefully practicing their faith were shot and killed in a Sikh gurudwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Last spring, I called my mom frantically in the days after the Boston Marathon bombings, terrified that the internet was pointing the blame at an innocent South Asian-American man and that another wave of violence and prejudice was impending. And I remember at least once, as an 8-year-old girl in suburban New Jersey in 2001, having to defend myself by saying "But I'm not a Muslim!"

Hundreds (thousands, if you count the War on Terror) of Afghans, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, and Indians paid and are still paying the price for an act of terrorism that we not only didn't commit, but also had friends and family members that were killed as a result of it. So yes, let's not forget that four days after the anniversary of 9/11, an Indian-American woman was crowned Miss America. I don't know if Nina Davuluri grew up anything like I did. I don't know which mandir her family goes to or which Bollywood movie is her favorite. But I'm almost certain that her parents felt the same hurt and fear that mine did in the days following 9/11. I've never had much affinity for beauty pageants, but congrats, Nina. You deserve it.