Pageant News Bureau

Culturally speaking, the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran are worlds apart. And for most American beauty queens, the restricted life of an Iranian woman must seem as alien as the moons of Neptune.

Not so for Suesan Rajabi, Miss Colorado USA 1996. She's a bona fide pageant star, who has competed in swimsuit and evening gown before a TV audience of millions. But she regularly visits Iran, the land of her ancestors, where she wraps herself from head to foot in the garment known as the chador and experiences life in a puritanical, male-dominated society, run according to a few people's interpretation of the Islamic religion.

What could unite these contrasting worlds? In the case of Ms. Rajabi, it's journalism. Educated in the traditions of American writing and broadcasting, she has become an expert on the often-harried dissident press of Iran, which is fighting for a more open society.

Iran's opposition journalists, who support reformers in the country's government, came under heavy official attack in the spring of 2000. There was even some violence. It was roughly the same time Ms. Rajabi was getting her master's degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder and finishing as first runner-up in the televised competition known as "Your Favorite Girl Next Door."

Ms. Rajabi is the daughter of Iranian-born American parents, but the Iran they left behind is very different from the one that now exists. They are from the generation of the Shah, a heavy-handed monarch who sought to make his ancient country as modern as any place in Europe. Everything Western was encouraged. There were even Iranian beauty contests.

In 1979, public discontent with repression forced the Shah to flee, but he was not replaced by an open society. Instead, a new government, run by clergy, outlawed almost everything Western. Their rules fell hardest on women, who were banned from using makeup, showing their hair or revealing any part of their bodies. And many career opportunities for women vanished.

Growing up in the United States, Ms. Rajabi kept in touch with Iranian culture, but she lived a free American life. And that included participating in beauty pageants as well as pursuing a career.

Encouraged by her parents, she entered the Miss Colorado USA Pageant in 1996, and she won. The surprise and excitement felt like "an out-of-body experience," she recalls.

That same year, Ms. Rajabi judged one of the last pageants in which the doomed child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey competed. She remembers JonBenet, whose unsolved slaying in December 1996 mesmerized the nation, as genuinely sweet and fun-loving. "I've seen little girls who seemed to be in pageants against their will, but that wasn't true of JonBenet," Ms. Rajabi says. "She loved to perform, she loved the costumes."

Ms. Rajabi, who is currently a production assistant for a major entertainment company, sees her future in entertainment news. For all that she has seen, "I really don't care for hard news," she quips. As for Iran, she foresees some eventual success by the reformist press. The country is becoming more tolerant and diverse, she says, even though a Western-style society may be a long way off.

Will pageants ever return to Iran? "I don't know," she replies. "It seems hard to imagine, but things can change so fast. I've seen some remarkable things."

All photos courtesy of Suesan Rajabi

A long way from the footlights