| 
| 
| |
29/06/2022
501 | 
0
Ian Lenahan Portsmouth Herald Published 5:00 a.m. ET June 29, 2022
Miss New Hampshire USA 2022, Camila Sacco, is a Portsmouth resident and a native of Paraguay. Sacco will compete in the Miss USA competition later this year. Camila Sacco's passion for pageants began in Kansas
PORTSMOUTH — The moment the tiara was placed on Camila Sacco's head was not only a goal years in the making achieved, but the ultimate stamp on a lifelong push to grow her confidence.
Winner of the 2022 Miss New Hampshire USA pageant last month, Sacco, a 27-year-old city resident, has been a pageant fanatic since her youth. Born in Paraguay and immigrating to Kansas with her family when she was 5 years old, Sacco watched beauty pageants on television growing up, marveling at the seemingly effortless confidence displayed by the participating contestants.
Sacco’s attraction to televised pageants came at a time when her peers in Kansas bullied her over her non-American citizen status. She didn't become a citizen until September 2016. Within a month after her naturalization in the Midwest, Sacco, 21, registered to compete in her first pageant, the Miss Kansas USA competition.
For five years, Sacco made incremental progress but never won a statewide pageant, all while fielding comments from some loved ones that she should move on from pageant participation. But in her final year of eligibility for the Miss New Hampshire USA pageant, two years after moving to the Granite State, Sacco achieved that dream.
On May 1, at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, Sacco heard the words she’d been waiting six years to hear. Holding back tears, the victory tiara was bestowed upon her and fellow contestants hugged her after she claimed the coveted title of Miss New Hampshire USA.
“It was shock. It was happiness. It was surreal. It was exciting, I definitely cried a lot,” Sacco said of her crowning moment. “It didn’t matter that I had competed so many times and failed because at that moment, you’re in that moment. Everything else that has happened in the past doesn’t matter.”
In Kansas, some told Sacco to quit pageants
Growing up in Kansas, Sacco told the Portsmouth Herald that she never felt she truly belonged. Children her age teased her and made discriminatory comments to her, asking if she had illegally immigrated and if she was living in the United States on a green card.
Camila Sacco, winner of the 2022 Miss New Hampshire USA pageant, is a Portsmouth resident and employee of Portsmouth Regional Hospital. Sacco, 27, will compete for the title of Miss USA at an undetermined date in the fall.
“I grew up watching (pageants), wanting to feel that sense of empowerment that I saw these other women carry,” Sacco said. “In trying to find my own sense of belonging, I wanted to compete for that reason.”
In her first Miss Kansas USA pageant, Sacco didn’t place in the competition. Sacco entered the pageant without knowing what it would entail. She was met with coaches training contestants on interviewing skills and practiced her on-stage walking and presentations.
COMENTÁRIOS - Clique aqui para fazer o seu
