ABSTRACT
In the days and weeks following the crowning of Nina Davuluri as Miss USA, discussions in the South Asian American community centered around Davuluri’s skin complexion and her influence on how South Asians viewed beauty. Many Indian commentators opined that Davuluri, an Indian American, would likely “never win pageants in South Asia” (Rao, 2013). Others, citing the long-standing popularity of actresses such as Nandita Das or the rise of models such as Lakshmi Menon, mused that the color paradigm in the Indian subcontinent, as well as in the larger Indian Diaspora, was slowly shifting. Indeed, the commercial success of Indian Americans such as Mindy Kaling (the star of the hit American television sitcom, The Mindy Project )— who has talked openly about the influence of skin color and body type on her career-has helped to break preconceived notions about idealized beauty (Kaling, 2015). Many pundits, however, continue to decontextualize or underestimate the significance of color and colorism among South Asians. The South Asian American community specifically is one that is still generationally adjusting to being a racial minority in the United States (U.S.) while remaining tied to active discourses on skin complexion that dominate the subcontinent.
