The first Miss Minnesota contest to wear a hijab

Culture&Arts Nilgun Salim
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The world of beauty contests is known for its strict rules, but a competitor in the Miss Minnesota competition managed to break some major barriers.

Halima Aden is the first beauty pageant contestant in the U.S. who chose to wear a ‘hijab’, the traditional Muslim veil, reports metro.co.uk.

Halima Aden is the first Muslim woman competing at Miss Minnesota, wearing a hijab. At the swimsuit section, Halima chose to make her appearance in the traditional Burkina Faso, a Muslim swimsuit that covers the entire body.

The young woman managed to reach the semifinals of the competition and she made to Top 15. Despite the fact she failed she go further, Halima Aden is glad that she got that far.

The 19-year-old Somali-American teenager is from St. Cloud Minnesota and the competition was held during the weekend.

Despite her excellent performance, Aden revealed ABC that her main purpose was not to win the beauty contest. Her main concern is to fight against the poisonous Islamophobia that currently run rampant across the United States.

‘This pageant is so much more than just beauty. [The] whole message [of Miss Minnesota USA] is being confidently beautiful, so I didn’t think that I should allow my hijab to get in the way of me participating.’, stated the student.

‘This is a great platform to show the world who I am…just because I’ve never seen a woman wearing a burkini [in a pageant] it doesn’t mean I don’t have to be the first’, added Halima.