Miss Chile is Venezuelan? Beauty queens leave Venezuela for better future



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By Associated Press

SANTIAGO, Chile — When the Miss Universe beauty pageant takes place in a few weeks, Chile will be represented by a slender brunette who has a killer smile and speaks Spanish with an unmistakable Venezuelan accent.

Andrea Diaz was born and raised in Valencia, Venezuela, where from the age of 12 she learned to sway her hips and glide gracefully down catwalks at a local modeling academy. At 19, she won a pageant organized by her hometown’s baseball team and became a goodwill ambassador for the squad.

But Diaz’s career changed course in her twenties as she moved to Panama and then Mexico for modeling jobs, which are now scarce in crisis-wracked Venezuela. Three years ago she settled down in Chile, where most of her family has also relocated.

“I represent the new Chile,” the 26-year-old said as she was training at a local gym in Santiago for the upcoming competition. “This is an inclusive country where immigrants come in search of opportunities.”

As thousands of people leave Venezuela each day to escape food shortages and an inflation rate that is expected to surpass 1 million percent, dozens of would-be beauty queens are also taking flight and finding work as models and media personalities overseas.

Some are even representing their adopted homelands in international beauty pageants.

Next month, Portugal will be represented at the Miss World competition in China by a former Miss Venezuela participant. And the recently concluded Miss Earth Contest, held in the Philippines, featured two Venezuelan models who competed on behalf of Peru and Spain.

“My dream of being a beauty queen was not going to stop just because I arrived in a new country,” said Jessica Russo, who represented Peru in Miss Earth, just a year after moving to that country.



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