Miss Asian Global Pageant (founded August 1, 1987)[1] was initiated as a part of the Asian Heritage Celebration for the County of Santa Clara in 1987, the pageant's top titleholders include the former First Lady of the State of Washington, Mona Lee Locke, wife of Gary Locke[2] and Fala Chen, the 2013 winner of the Huading Award for Best Female Drama Actress.
A 2010 book by cultural anthropologist Afia A. Ofori-Mensa studied the relationships among race, gender, and U.S. national identity using the Miss Asian Global Pageant.
She found that "panethnic pageants like Miss Asian Global" which came of age in the 1980s plays an important role in the constitution of national identity "through ideal femininity, in both embodied and rhetorical ways."
[4] Cultural integration and the introduction of neoliberal values have also been examined through the prism of the Miss Asian Global Pageant extensively by women's studies scholars.
Professor Nhi T. Lieu, in studying Miss Asian Global pointed to the pageant's role in promoting capitalism and neoliberal values presented within traditional contexts such as the utilization of the Vietnamese women's garment known as the ao dai.