The Miss Minnesota Pageant experienced two firsts with a contestant wearing a hijab and a burkini during its competition this weekend.
While 19-year-old Halima Aden did not make the final five of Sunday's competition, the bilingual college student said she hopes her appearance breaks stereotypes about Muslim women being oppressed.
"I just want to go on as myself," Aden, a freshman at St. Cloud State University, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "When you have a lot of women in our state that do wear the hijab, we should be able to see that everywhere."
Aden, a Somali-American, wore a hijab during the pageant and in the swimsuit competition donned a burkini, which covered her from the neck to ankles.
"For a really long time I thought being different was a negative thing," Aden told WCCO-TV. "But as I grew older, I started to realize we are all born to stand out, nobody is born to blend in. How boring would this world be if everyone was the same?"
While Meridith Gould, 22, of Minneapolis, won the Miss Minnesota Pageant and will represent the state in the Miss USA pageant in 2017, pageant officials told KARE-TV they supported Aden standing by her faith.
"I think for Halima standing on the stage this weekend she is showing other women that they too can do that and that it's possible for them," Denise Wallace, executive co-director of the Miss Minnesota USA pageant, told the station.
Rukia Aden, Halima Aden's mother, initially declined to comment on her daughter's participation in the pageant, but told the Star Tribune on Sunday she backed her daughter's choice.
"I support my daughter," Rukia Aden, who moved her family to Minnesota from a Kenyan refugee camp when Aden was 7, told the newspaper. "This was something new to me. I'm very happy to live in the United States where people are free and can wear what they want. It was her choice and I'm happy with what she chose."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.