FUPAC Member Wins Beauty Pageant

How often does a college student get the chance to say that she won a pageant?  Maxine Cruz-Am, FCRH '12, is lucky enough to be able to say it every day.

On Jan. 28, Cruz-Am partook in a Ms. Philippines pageant hosted by Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. The Ms. Philippines pageant was created with the intention of inducing a little friendly competition all in good fun.

There are three portions of the pageant that the contestants prepared for: cultural wear, talent segment and, for the top five, question-and-answer.

The event was sponsored by Filipino Intercollegiate Networking Dialogue, an organization comprised of 12 districts whose purpose is to create a dialogue of contemporary issues pertaining to Filipino topics. Fordham University's Philippine American Club (FUPAC), belongs to district three, which includes schools in the New York City, North Jersey and Long Island area, such as Stony Brook University and New York University.

Cruz-Am was initially reluctant to participate.

 "It was out of my comfort zone," she said.

With the encouragement of her friends in FUPAC, however, she agreed to represent FUPAC against 18 other schools in Newark Symphony Hall.

When asked if she was nervous, Cruz-Am admitted she was.

 "I couldn't help but be nervous, but I was still proud to represent my fellow club members against a bunch of other clubs," she said.

Newark is not exactly around the corner. Still, more than 30 Fordham students made the trek via public transportation. This amounted to more than two hours of travel time, all to support their dear friend, Maxine Cruz-Am.

As the audience began to arrive, music traveled throughout the venue as groups of supporters cheered clever chants for the 19 brave girls. "Max City Trick, Max Max City," a spin-off of the popular Tyga song, "Rack City" filled the entire auditorium as members of FUPAC began to overpower the other cheers.

During the cultural-wear portion, a majority of the contestants wore a customary dress called a Filipiniana dress. In order to stand out, Cruz-Am boasted attire from a southern, more Muslim region of the Philippines known as Mindanao. Not only did she take a risk by wearing a "Pangalay Princess" outfit, she also performed a miniature Pangalay dance, a traditional Filipino dance, whilst standing on top of tinikling sticks, performing theatrical tricks to wow both the audience and judges.

As for her talent segment, Cruz-Am concocted a short Broadway number with the help of some of her fellow FUPAC club members, Andre Padayhag, FCRH '14, Larion Santiago, FCRH '13, Matthew Novick, GSB '13 and Marissa Santander, FCRH '14.               

Cruz-Am sang a variation of songs, including "Little Town" from Beauty and Beast, "A Whole New World" from Aladdin and "For Good" from the popular Broadway show Wicked.

Cruz-Am had been practicing for the talent competition with many helpful club members since Dec. 2011. In addition to being well-prepared, Cruz-Am and her friends also made a joint effort to create four backdrops to be displayed throughout the four minutes allotted for the talent segment.

"I think the reason why Maxine won was because the judges were able to see how well she prepared for it," friend and supporter Caitlin Ramiro, FCRH '14, said. "You can also tell that both her cultural and talent parts were a product of her teamwork with everyone from FUPAC."

"I was so stoked when Maxine's name was the first one called, when they were announcing the top five to go through to the next round," President of FUPAC Matthew Novick, GSB `13, said.

Chicago-based songwriter and YouTube singer Manny Garcia, who has almost 18,000 subscribers on his YouTube page, was randomly chosen from the panel of five judges to ask Cruz-Am questions for the final portion of the evening, question-and-answer.

Garcia asked whether or not Cruz-Am believes Filipino-Americans are apathetic towards American politics and what Filipino-Americans could do to become more involved in them.

 Cruz-Am eloquently responded that she did not believe that Filipino-Americans were apathetic towards politics in the United States.

She further expanded her answer by noting that it is through the media that the younger generation can become more involved with American politics.

She continued to elaborate that through Filipino television channels such as TFC, American politics could be broadcasted to the older and younger generations alike.

With her uncommon cultural wear, a dazzling talent segment and an eloquently and intelligently spoken response for the question-and-answer portion, it is no wonder that Maxine Cruz-Am took home the coveted crown and title of Ms. Philippines 2012.