the first black winner of the “Miss Ecuador” beauty pageant, was born Mónica Paulina Chalá Mejía on 11 April 1973, in Quito, Ecuador. She was the third of six children born to a mother from Esmeraldas and a father from the Chota valley, two rural migrants who had come to the nation’s capital in search of work. Through her parents, she was thus tied to two historically black regions of the country, but she herself was raised as a quiteña. Her older sister Liliana Chalá (1965–) was a successful athlete in school and went on to win international prizes in hurdling and sprint events, representing Ecuador in the 1988 and 1992 Summer Olympics The young Mónica attended modeling school in Quito and through her sister s contacts she soon secured work in a television advertisement for a major bank alongside a famous soccer star A ...
Article
Chalá, Mónica
Camilla Townsend
Article
RuPaul
Monica Hairston
drag performer, singer, songwriter, and actor, was born RuPaul Andre Charles in San Diego, California, the only son of four children to Ernestine “Toni” Fontenette (a registrar) and Irving Andrew Charles (an electrician). RuPaul was close to his sisters Renae, Renatta, and Rosalind, and to his mother, particularly after his parents' bitter 1967 divorce. Shortly afterward, RuPaul moved in with Renatta and her husband in El Cajon, California, and then moved with them to Atlanta in the summer of 1976 While there RuPaul worked with his brother in law as a used car salesman but also attended the Northside School of the Performing Arts RuPaul s experiences as a drama major at Northside as well as his exposure to the liberating and bohemian climate in Atlanta fueled his desire to succeed as a performing artist RuPaul experienced his first drag queen performance ...
Article
RuPaul, Andre Charles
Roanne Edwards
Since the release of his 1992 debut album Supermodel of the World, RuPaul has become a nationally recognized celebrity. Although best known as a drag queen, he also enjoys surprising audiences by appearing as a man. “Drag queens are like the shamans of our society, reminding people of what's funny and what's a stereotype,” he told People Weekly writer Tim Allis in 1993. “I feel very powerful when I'm in drag, and when I'm out of drag I observe our culture.” Six feet, seven inches tall in heels, RuPaul is painfully aware of the contradictions of being a black man who wears a platinum wig and platform heels. “When I'm dressed up as this goddess,” he told Allis, “people trip over themselves to give me things. But as an African American male, I can walk into an elevator and have people clutch their handbags.”
Born RuPaul Andre Charles ...
Article
Wek, Alek
Jeremy Rich
was born on 16 April 1977 in Wau, Bahr el-Ghazal province, South Sudan to Athian Wek, a teacher, and Akuol Parek. Wek was the seventh of nine children. Her family belonged to the Dinka ethnic community. During the Sudanese civil war from 1956 to 1972, Wek’s parents spent much of their time as refugees in the Central African Republic and other countries. Wek did not know her actual date of birth, but later chose 16 April 1977 as the legal date Like many Dinka Wek was quite tall and reached nearly six feet in height Her family was reasonably well off by the standards of Wau in the late 1970s and 1980s even though they did not have access to electricity Her parents were strict but Wek later recalled their sense of discipline with respect Her education began in Wau at a primary school originally founded by European ...
