Models Stand with Oaxaca: Miss Universe Canceled

Today, pageant owners Donald Trump and NBC pulled the Miss Universe Contest out of the ancient indigenous site of Monte Alban, Oaxaca, just three weeks after the APMO announced that models were mobilizing to protest in solidarity with the social movements of Oaxaca. With the pullout of Miss Universe from Oaxaca, models have preserved our dignity as workers and as agents for peace, justice, and democracy, and as workers we will continue stand in solidarity with the peoples of Oaxaca against the dictatorship.

The last time the Mexican government attempted to impose a major international spectacle on a people during a time of public repudiation of the regime, prior to the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, protests were met by brutal police repression, causing the massacre of Tlatelolco Plaza on October 2, 1968 where more than 1,000 protesters were assassinated and many more wounded and imprisoned. A similar bloodbath was waiting in the wings with the traditional costumes contest of Miss Universe, but models have stood up and declared that we will have no part in repression.

There have been several conflicting reports as to the reasoning behind Donald Trump’s decision to nix plans to host the pageant in Oaxaca. Ulises Ruiz’s claim that Trump was demanding $1.5 million dollars to host the affair has been contradicted by the state president of the National Chamber of Restaurant and Food Industries, Javier Pérez Chavarría, who claims it was political tensions in the disputed region – rather than economic demands – that led to the event to be canceled.