RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

Milei­dy Mat­er­a­no, T&T’s Venezue­lan-born del­e­gate at the Miss Grand In­ter­na­tion­al Pageant in Viet­nam next month, says this coun­try will al­ways be her “first love”.

She made the com­ment in a state­ment re­leased by Ker­ry Gob­erd­han, head of mar­ket­ing and pub­lic re­la­tions for fran­chise hold­ers SPL Pageants.

“There is an ir­re­place­able con­nec­tion to the land of your birth and it is im­pos­si­ble not to fall in love with our warmth as a peo­ple. As we con­tin­ue to open our arms and in­vite the world in, this is what we must show the world,” Mat­er­a­no said.

“I ar­gue that we, as Trinida­di­ans, have long pi­o­neered the con­cepts of in­clu­sive­ness and ac­cep­tance of all. In fact, that is the coun­try of my fore­fa­thers and the coun­try I grew up in! Our vi­sion for the fu­ture should be to con­tin­ue to pi­o­neer be­ing this vivid and mul­ti-cul­tur­al utopia that we have al­ways been!”

Mat­er­a­no point­ed out that Trinida­di­ans “have mi­grat­ed to sev­er­al coun­tries across the world and have made those coun­tries their home”.

“Like­wise, our neigh­bours have come to our shores to find their home. This, how­ev­er, is not a new phe­nom­e­non. To cre­ate a bet­ter life for them­selves and their fam­i­lies, our fore­fa­thers em­i­grat­ed. The move­ment of peo­ples and cul­tures has shaped the very world we live in,” she said in the state­ment.

“When I hear Tri­nis speak of their an­ces­try, they say it proud­ly, ie Span­ish, Por­tuguese, French, In­di­an, Syr­i­an and African. All of these cul­tures have melt­ed in­to our so­ci­ety and in­te­grat­ed in­to what we know as Trinidad and To­ba­go. Even our beloved Car­ni­val and J’Ou­vert find their roots in French Cre­ole his­to­ry.

“We have opened our lands to oth­er na­tions be­cause of their hard­ships and strug­gles, but let us not for­get the hun­dreds of thou­sands of Trinida­di­an-born who call the Unit­ed States, Cana­da and the Unit­ed King­dom their homes.

“Our West In­di­an cul­ture lives strong in these na­tions. Should our broth­ers and sis­ters abroad be vic­timised for their choice to seek oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties out­side of our land?”

The pageant or­gan­is­ers were heav­i­ly crit­i­cised for se­lect­ing Mat­er­a­no be­cause she is a non-na­tion­al. How­ev­er, they stood by her, not­ing that she had met all the en­try re­quire­ments.

Seem­ing­ly ad­dress­ing this con­tro­ver­sy, she said, “In this ever-evolv­ing world, many of us are no longer lim­it­ed to the bor­ders of our coun­try of birth. In­stead, we make our own, we grow and find where we be­long. We find our home and for some lucky peo­ple ‘our homes’.”

Mean­while, Mis­ter Grand In­ter­na­tion­al T&T, Stephen Bas­sano, em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of pro­mot­ing ac­cep­tance, com­pas­sion, and un­der­stand­ing.

He said he hopes his plat­form will shed light “on vul­ner­a­ble groups such as Venezue­lan im­mi­grants and in­spire Trin­bag­o­ni­ans to demon­strate their com­pas­sion and tol­er­ance”.

Bas­sano has been de­scribed as an ex­em­plary leader who is com­mit­ted to rep­re­sent­ing T&T on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage. He said his pas­sion for pageantry and his de­sire to in­spire his fel­low cit­i­zens drove him to take on the role and he aims to be an am­bas­sador for change, pro­mot­ing holis­tic de­vel­op­ment and en­cour­ag­ing in­di­vid­u­als to break through bar­ri­ers and pur­sue their dreams.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go’s great­est strength lies in its di­ver­si­ty, as its peo­ple have come to­geth­er from many back­grounds to form a unit­ed na­tion,” Bas­sano said.