La Brega: Wearing Puerto Rico On Your Sash — Episode Transcript
Alana: By the way, is that a pole for pole dancing?
Danny Mejía: It is.
Alana: Is that yours? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You pole dance? Yeah.
Danny Mejía: Yeah, I’m a dancer.
Alana: Wow. Cool. It spins?
Danny Mejía: Yeah. You can try it!
Alana: There’s something about Danny Mejía. He’s athletic, for one thing, and confident. He speaks at least 3 languages – though he’s always game for learning more.
Danny Mejía: We had to stay kind of close to Ho Chi Minh, Vũng Táo, and Phan Thiet.
Alana: Wow. You’re really pronouncing that with the accent.
Danny Mejía: I try. I learned a bit of Vietnamese before going to Vietnam.
Alana: Of course you did!
Alana: His skin looks like it’s been polished with smooth stones, the way artists burnish pottery. In person, his smile is so genuine, as though he’s about to burst into song just talking to you.
And that’s something else he can do.
ARCHIVAL – Wapa Puerto Rico // Viva la Tarde: Canciones de mi Abuelo
Danny Mejia sings “Ahora seremos felices” –
“ Ahora seremos felices. Ahora podemos cantar–”
Alana: And, he’s also relatable. He looks like someone you might know, like someone who might help adjust your mortgage, because that’s his day job.
But outside of his 9-5, there’s something even more interesting that’s been in the works since Danny was little.
Danny Mejía: Y siempre hacía el Puerto Rico, o sea, lo pronunciaba Puerto Rico como es.
Alana: Nada de Puerto Rico.
Danny Mejía: No, nada de Puerto Rico
Alana: Danny’s dad is Peruvian, and they had a playful competition at home about what country was better. In some sense, he’d been preparing to represent Puerto Rico his whole life without even realizing it.
Danny Mejía: Yo siento que toda mi vida yo llevo preparándome para algo como Míster World sin darme cuenta.
Alana: And so, on one hand, it perhaps shouldn’t have been surprising when in 2024, Danny was asked to fly to the other side of the world, to Vietnam, all by himself, to spend three weeks doing nothing but representing Puerto Rico. The Miss and Mister Puerto Rico organization, which runs local pageants, saw potential in Danny. The pandemic had interrupted the usual nominating process for finding their Mister, and they approached Danny directly instead. They wanted him to compete in the most prestigious, and oldest, modern-day international male beauty competition: Mister World. And Danny told them:
Danny Mejía: Fue un no. Para mí, fue un no.
Alana: He turned them down – more than once. He had no modeling experience…
Danny Mejía: Casi nunca había visto ni un concurso de belleza.
Alana: And he had barely even seen a beauty pageant before, let alone competed in one.
Danny Mejía: Yo siempre pensaba que era algo artificial. Personas que es todo de lo físico.
Alana: He thought they were frivolous, and superficial –
Danny Mejía: Que no había valor a todo eso.
Alana: – that there was no real value. But Danny did like that the Mister World competition rewards contestants who have a cause. And for him, that’s kidney disease, because his sister is a kidney transplant patient.
And besides, Danny would be 28 years old for the pageant, and the cut off was 29. It was now or never if he wanted to represent Puerto Rico this way.
Danny Mejía: So que era una oportunidad once in a lifetime realmente.
Alana: So, he said yes. Yes to being Mister Puerto Rico in 2024’s Mister World pageant, hosted that year in Vietnam.
Although, just as he had been skeptical of the beauty pageant scene, some in the scene were skeptical of him, too. He barely had a social media presence and he was an unknown in the pageant and modeling world. Most missiólogos – the people who blog about the Misses and Misters – thought he was a poor choice.
Danny Mejía: They were like, oh no, like, we don’t stand a chance.
Alana: And it really did matter whether Danny stood a chance or not. Because he had a whole legacy to uphold.
Everyone knows that if there’s a beauty pageant that Puerto Rico can compete in, a Boricua will try to bring home the crown. Or, in Danny’s case, a sash.
We’re so good at pageants that Puerto Rico is the only country that has won what’s known as the pageantry Grand Slam. We’ve had winners for all seven of the major women’s competitions: Miss World, Miss Universe, Miss International, Miss Earth, Miss Supranational, Miss Grand International, and Miss Intercontinental. Not even Venezuela, another beauty powerhouse, has done it.
ARCHIVAL montage:
Miss World 1975:
Host: Miss Puerto Rico…
1993 Miss Universe:
Host: Congratulations to Miss Puerto Rico you are Miss Universe…
Host: Puerto Rico is Miss Universe
Miss Universe 1985:
Host: Miss Universe is Miss Puerto Rico!
Miss Universe 2001:
Host: Puerto Rico!
2006 pageant:
Host: Miss Puerto Rico!
2016 Miss World:
Host: Puerto Rico!
Alana: For decades now, expectations have been impossibly high, and Puerto Rican women have surpassed them anyway.
And Boricua contestants have to carry the dreams and scorn of an entire country on their shoulders. Because beauty pageants – like the Olympics – are a space where Puerto Rico competes on its own, as a country.
Manuel Avilés Santiago: Puerto Rico is just Puerto Rico. It’s not US Puerto Rico. It’s not the commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It’s not the US territory of Puerto Rico.
Alana: Manuel Avilés Santiago is writing a book about this love affair with beauty pageants.
Manuel Avilés Santiago: And for like two hours we think that we are this independent nation.
Alana: So a lot was riding on Danny’s performance. But he had no real experience. By being chosen, he was going into the general election without being tested by the primaries. Most other countries had their Misters a year out from the competition, and he had just four months to prepare. He was facing a challenge bigger than himself: Mister Puerto Rico had never been Mister World before. But Danny was going to try to bring home that glory anyway.
From Futuro Studios, I’m Alana Casanova-Burgess, and this is La Brega. In this episode: being Mister Puerto Rico.
BREAK
Manuel Avilés Santiago, the guy writing the book on pageants, has been watching them since he was a kid.
Manuel Avilés Santiago: I think like all, all Puerto Ricans, we have the beauty pageants in our DNA.
Alana: His first was 1985 and Miss Puerto Rico took the Miss Universe crown for the second time in history, when Deborah Carthy Deu, won against Miss Spain.
ARCHIVAL – Miss Universe 1985
Host: …the first runner up is Miss Spain…
Manuel Avilés Santiago: That was a big event. Not only in my household because everybody was watching it.
ARCHIVAL – Miss Universe 1985
Host: Miss Universe is Puerto Rico!
Manuel Avilés Santiago: But also in the neighborhood there were fireworks. People came outside, started screaming. Then the next day in the newspapers, all the covers have the face of Deborah. And I realized that, well, there’s something here that is special about this.
Alana: Partly, it was because it was televised live – everyone could experience it together. And for Puerto Rico, winning international pageants felt incredible.
It happened for the first time in 1970, with Marisol Malaret, a working-class 20 year old with auburn hair and green eyes, from Puerto Nuevo.
ARCHIVAL – Melody Box
Host: Would you believe it, Miss Puerto Rico speaks English? And your name is?
Marisol Malaret: Marisol Malaret
Alana: And the runner up was Miss United States.
Manuel Avilés Santiago: That was a very symbolic moment.
Alana: It was like the lights switched on.
Manuel Avilés Santiago: The welcoming parade was so huge.
ARCHIVAL – Melody Box
Reporter: Ahí está Miss Universo, ahí está Marisol Malaret, un encanto, una muchacha preciosa!
Manuel Avilés Santiago: It was covered by the media.
ARCHIVAL – Melody Box
Reportero: Señoras y señores, algo extraordinario. La Ponce de León está completamente llena de público, mis amigos…
Manuel Avilés Santiago: So I would say that that was the big moment that Puerto Rico made that connection with like pageants, and the idea of: we can actually be represented in this space.
Alana: And then it began: there were more investments in the local pageants, more women started participating. It became a space where a certain idea of nationhood was starting to take shape.
ARCHIVAL – Anything Universal TV
Host: Live and in color via satellite from the Cerromar Beach Hotel in Dorado, Puerto Rico, the Miss Universe beauty pageant.
Alana: Take, for example, the 1972 Miss Universe competition. Puerto Rico was hosting for the very first time. The pageant became so high-profile it was even a target for sabotage. The world was watching the broadcast the night of the final.
ARCHIVAL – Anything Universal TV
Host: And here’s the announcement we’ve all been waiting for.
Alana: And just before the moment of the crowning, the feed was disrupted everywhere. The screen went dark, but the audio kept going…
ARCHIVAL – Anything Universal TV
Host: Alright, girls, the first runner up is…
Alana: Then, after the announcement of the new Miss Universe, the audio also went out.
ARCHIVAL – Anything Universal TV
Host: Miss Brazil. Miss Australia is Miss Universe –
Alana: A Puerto Rican pro-independence group had interrupted the transmission, to get attention for the cause.
Manuel Avilés Santiago: And they thought that obviously, that the moment of visibility and the reach of the pageant could also serve as a platform.
Alana: That was the power of pageants. At the same time that the Puerto Rican government was using these competitions to attract tourism, independence activists were using that attention to highlight US colonialism.
Just a few months before that, Miss USA was also hosted in Puerto Rico and the hotel where it was being televised was bombed by pro-independence activists. There were no injuries.
Puerto Rico continued to grow as a beauty powerhouse anyway. Just three years later, we won the oldest, modern-day international pageant: Miss World.
ARCHIVAL – Miss World 1974 – Anneline Kriel
Presenter: Incredible sensation here at the Albert Hall, Wilnelia Merced, 18 years old. Absolute pandemonium breaking out there…
Alana: And Wilnelia Merced is seen as the first Black Puerto Rican to win Miss World.
Then there was the Miss Universe win in 1985 we mentioned before, and another one in the 90s…
ARCHIVAL – beautiesofpuertorico
Presenter: Live by satellite from Mexico, the 1993 Miss Universe pageant!
Alana: The top three contestants were all from Latin America.
ARCHIVAL – beautiesofpuertorico
Presenter: The first runner up is Miss Colombia. Miss Universe is Miss Puerto Rico, Dayanara Torres!
Alana: Dayanara Torres was up against two beauty powerhouses: Colombia and Venezuela. And although she hadn’t been a favorite to win, Boricuas knew she had this deeply relatable backstory. She was from rural Toa Alta.
Manuel Avilés Santiago: And she live in this small, you know, wood house.
Alana: She wanted to be a dentist, she had horses!
Manuel Avilés Santiago: It was a Cinderella story for Puerto Ricans .
Alana: There’s this way that the entire pageant scene is a Cinderella story for Puerto Rico. We have fewer resources and a lot to prove. It’s a space that’s ripe for that narrative.
Manuel Avilés Santiago: Interestingly, some of the most successful countries in Miss Universe are countries that have a colonial history.
Alana: Right, like the Philippines, Venezuela.
Manuel Avilés Santiago: India-
Alana: Uh huh.
Manuel Avilés Santiago: And I feel that there is some connection between that need of demonstrate something to the world that is related to the passion for pageants in these specific countries.
Alana: It may be because of that need to prove something that Puerto Rico is serious about its beauty pageant training. Think beauty bootcamp.
ARCHIVAL – El Nuevo Día
Personal Trainer Coach: Hay que trabajar los brazos pa’ tonificar lo y los hombros, pa’ poner los bonitos y que la cintura se vea más finita.
Alana: Contestants sculpt their bodies at the gym.
ARCHIVAL – El Nuevo Día
Personal Trainer Coach: También cuando decimos adiós, que nada se menee, que todo se ponga en su sitio.
Alana: Have dedicated coaches who teach them how to catwalk, they take classes with oratory coaches and English language lessons, they have designers who pick every outfit from the evening gown to what they arrive at the hotel in.
Danny had just four months to go through all that bootcamp training, and he knew he’d have to give it his all. There was a lot riding on how he showed up in Vietnam.
Danny Mejía: Yo decía yo voy aquí a Vietnam para elevarme como hombre, como ser humano, y también para representar dignamente a Puerto Rico.
Alana: But he felt insecure. In his eyes, he was overweight.
Danny Mejía: Yo me sentía bien inseguro para ponerme en una tarima y representar a Puerto Rico porque físicamente yo estaba sobrepeso.
Alana: He also got coached on just about everything: oratory, fitness, catwalk, nutrition, style. He worked with a team of designers on his attire, including a costume to represent Puerto Rican culture. And he prepared for the other competitions: talent, sports, and even taking more photos to build his social media.
Manuel Avilés Santiago: It’s a pageant that is exhausting. Because you have to be good at everything.
Alana: The typical look for a beauty queen hasn’t changed much in decades.
But the notion of the ideal man has come a long way since the bodybuilding competitions of the 1940s. Those would be the standard for the next five decades – think Arnold Schwarzenegger.
That shifted in the 1990s, when iconically masculine men started to embrace their feminine side. Like when David Beckham began to paint his nails, and make bold fashion statements.
ARCHIVAL – Comic Relief
Ali G: So keeping on fashion. What was the name of the dress you wore?
David Beckham: A sarong.
Ali G: I know it was so wrong…but…
Alana: And at the same time, male modeling contests were setting the foundation for male beauty pageants, starting with Mister World in 1996.
In the beginning, the contest focused on the physical – it was more about looks. But that’s been changing, and today, contestants have to show that they have varied interests, and that they have a purpose in life.
For Danny, showing that side of himself wouldn’t be a stretch. He told us that his idea of a masculine man is one who is ready to be in service of the world, of his family.
Danny Mejía: Es una persona que pueda servirle al mundo a su gente, a su familia, a sus amigos y si esa es mi definición, no tiene que ver con lo físico. Tiene que ver todo, todo, todo con lo emocional, con lo mental.
Alana: You have to be ready, he told me, to show your emotions.
Danny Mejía: Y también es comunicar las emociones.
Alana: And for Danny, while his father is and was a role model for him, he also learned a lot from his mother, Milagros Romero Acha.
Danny and his mother would cook together…
Danny Mejía: Yo era como sus sus chef. Yo siempre cocinaba. Era su asistente en la cocina
Alana: And sing together.
HOME VIDEO CLIP: Singing “Abrazar la Vida” by Luis Fonsi
Danny and Milagros: Abrazar la vida, para hacerla mía!
Alana: She gave him a toast at his college graduation.
HOME VIDEO FOOTAGE:
Milagros: The first thing I thought was, “oh my God, how am I ever gonna put a cap on that big head.” But then, but then you grew into your head. And you grew that beautiful heart that you have. Danny, we’re very proud, very proud of what you have done. Your heart is in the right place. Keep it there, OK?
Alana: Danny’s mom passed away in 2020. Four years later, she was on his mind as he prepared to travel to Vietnam for the pageant.
Danny Mejía: She taught me how to, you know, behave myself and how to respect others from a young age. I think interestingly enough, like a woman can really teach you how to be a man more than anyone else. At the end of the day, like masculinity is masculinity. I feel like I can do whatever sport, whatever dance. That’s the beauty of the freedom that we have. And I don’t think that masculinity should be questioned, you know, because at the end of the day, I’m a man.
Alana: But Danny was stepping into a world with more rigid ideas of masculinity than his own.
José Luis Castro: Most of the time we expect that the winner is gonna be the best contestant and it doesn’t happen always in that way.
Alana: This is José Luis Castro, who blogs about pageants as El Tío de Las Reinas.
José Luis Castro: Sometimes political issues, location of the pageant may have a very important – es como, tiene mucho peso en la decisión final.
Alana: It sounds like beauty pageants are really, are political.
José Luis Castro: Yes, they are. Yes, they are. Remember that if you don’t win, it is not because you’re not the best, it’s because this is business and we forget that part.
Alana: A multimillion dollar business with stakeholders around the world. And often, who is crowned, is a reflection of a time and a place, of shifting beauty norms and of course of what qualities the judges want to reward.
And for male pageant contestants, there are still a lot of stereotypes they have to battle.
José Luis Castro: La mayoría de los modelos, o siempre ha estado este concepto erróneo, que si tu eras modelo, no eras masculino.
Alana: So you’re a model, you’re not masculine.
José Luis Castro: Exactly. If you compete in a, male beauty pageant, you know that you are gonna have very emotional intelligence in order to understand the behavior of the fans because they’re gonna criticize everything. If you put your hands in some way, you are not masculine. If you are not masculine enough, you should not win. If you are gay, you should not compete because it’s for real males. It’s stupid like it sounds, but it’s the reality.
Alana: Danny wasn’t immune from that criticism. It reached him through group chats and comments online.
Danny Mejía: Y después me desconecte porque sabes, ya yo estaba bien enfocado antes de la competencia.
Alana: So Danny disconnected from all that in order to focus and protect himself. And, after four months of preparation, ready or not, it was time to put on the sash and compete.
It was early November, and he left for Vietnam as Mister Puerto Rico, to compete in male pageantry’s biggest event, and his very first pageant.
And almost right away, it didn’t go well.
Danny Mejía: Como se dice en la brega así que hay que bregar con la que – lo que tenemos.
Alana: Coming up: Danny’s in La Brega.
BREAK
ARCHIVAL – Instagram live @dannymejiapr
Danny Mejía: Hello! The weather in Vietnam is gorgeous, it’s beautiful. It’s a lot like Puerto Rico. It’s hot so I’m very used to it but it’s still a lot.
Alana: Danny had made it to Vietnam and met the other contestants. The first competition was a runway walk, and Danny had never modeled before. And he was also really sick. He had gotten food poisoning.
Danny Mejía: Y yo estaba preparado osea, yo fui para para ejecutar.
Alana: But he got a lucky break: a roommate moved in with him. And not just anyone.
Alana: ¿De dónde?
Danny Mejía: De la República Dominicana, eh,
Alana: ¡Okay! Isla hermana.
Danny Mejía: Si, isla hermana.
Alana: It was a neighbor: Mister Dominican Republic, Julio Peña.
Danny had been making it a point to learn the names of the other competitors – and despite being sick to his stomach, he made the effort to help Mister Dominican Republic move into the room. His Caribbean competitor returned the kindness and gave him his Pepto Bismol.
Danny Mejía: Y si no hubiera sido por ese Pepto Bismol, hubiera perdido todo esa noche así que.
Alana: He didn’t embarrass himself or Puerto Rico, but he also didn’t place in the runway walk.
Then came the sports competition: a 5k run and a 50-meter swimming race.
ARCHIVAL – Celebrity Home
Alana: Danny won that one, so he was now in the top 20 out of 60 Misters. Things were looking up.
Danny Mejía: Para mí, el momento que más me impactó fue cuando gané el deporte.
Alana: His competitors were actually chanting for him.
Danny Mejía: Porque fue la primera vez que todo el mundo empezó a gritar: Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico.
ARCHIVAL – Instagram @eltiodelasreinas
Spectators: Puerto Rico! Puerto Rico! Puerto Rico!
Alana: From there, things took a turn. Danny had interviews, a multimedia test. In almost every competition, Danny was coming in at the top or as a finalist.
Manuel Avilés Santiago: He was doing really, really well.
Alana: Again, Manuel Avilés Santiago.
Manuel Avilés Santiago: So those who understand the Miss World and Mister World pageant, they knew that something, something’s gonna happen here.
Alana: And then, it was time for one of the highest stakes events of the whole competition. The national costume contest.
Manuel Avilés Santiago: That always create a lot of tension. That traditional costume or national costume is one of the spaces that has created the most contentious in the history of beauty pageants in Puerto Rico.
Alana: Everybody has an opinion on what Puerto Rican contestants choose. What message about Puerto Ricanness are they sending? What part of the culture is being highlighted on the world stage? And how’s the dancing? Is there rhythm? Danny was going to face all these questions, too.
ARCHIVAL – Mr. World
Announcer: Puerto Rico’s costume is inspired by el vejigante, one of the prominent figures in Puerto Rican festivals, especially in the Loiza and Ponce festivals that are rooted in African traditions.
Danny Mejía: El vejigante was kind of a demon that the Spanish used as a device to scare people into going into church. But when Puerto Ricans really brought the vejigante here and made it their own – made it our own – we turned it from something evil to something more playful.
Alana: Danny’s costume was green and blue, representing the beaches of Puerto Rico, with fragments of mirror on his cape so he sparkled as he danced in the spotlight.
Danny Mejía: We were like we got honor that the vejigante you know it’s usually covered up in the body, but also we to show some body. So we were like what are we gonna do? What are we gonna do?
Alana: The solution was to enter backwards, so the audience would see the cape first. And…
Danny Mejía: …the mask instead of being on the front of my face it was on the back so when I enter on stage people think I’m entering face first, but really it’s a surprise.
Alana: When he was ready, he spun around. And there was Danny, with his bare torso, and his face exposed.
Manuel Avilés Santiago: I feel that many times that we use the vejigante as a representation in the Miss Universe stage has always been very whitewashed. He actually did it with the joy and excitement of the actual vejigante performance.
Alana: Danny didn’t win the national costume contest, but he made an impression – putting on a complicated display of Puerto Rican culture, and placing in the top 20. El Tio was watching:
José Luis Castro: If you know about pageantry, you can feel that the moment that you know a person.
Alana: What is that?
José Luis Castro: It’s something like Angel Magic. In the way that he behaves, in the way that he treats the people around him.
Alana: It’s a saying in Puerto Rico – esa persona tiene ángel. They have something special. But let’s go with Angel Magic.
José Luis Castro: That made a participant unique, special, it doesn’t matter if near him is someone that looks physically better than him, you know, that he’s gonna call the attention of everybody. And I noticed that from Danny since day one.
Alana: There was a moment in the competition where everything coalesced for Danny: his angel magic, his Puerto Ricanness and his kind of masculinity…
ARCHIVAL – Instagram live @dannymejiapr
Danny Mejía: I’m getting ready now to go perform at the Mr. World talent final…
Alana: The talent competition.
ARCHIVAL – Instagram live @dannymejiapr
Danny Mejía: …and I’m really excited.
Alana: Danny was up against: a drummer (Mr. Poland)…boxing (Mr. Pakistan), traditional dances (Mr. Mexico) and even stand up comedy (Mr. USA)…
And Danny – he was going to use one of his greatest talents: his voice.
ARCHIVAL – MR WORLD 2024 FINAL SHOW PUERTO RICO (MR. TALENT), Josept Gómez M.
Danny Mejia singing “You Raise Me Up”: I am strong when I am on your shoulders!
Danny Mejía: I think of my mom, you know, to some that every time I sing, I dedicate it to her.
Alana: And in true pageant style, Danny had to sing “You Raise Me Up” three times. First for rehearsal, in which the judges showed their cards.
Danny Mejía: They gave me a crazy standing ovation, the judges, some of them crying. It was like the biggest boom and probably the most proud moment for me singing it in all of the competition because it was the first impression.
Alana: Then he performed it AGAIN, for a second time, for the livestreamed actual talent competition. Which he won, unsurprisingly. And then he performed it one last time on the night of the final.
The day of that performance, producers from the Vietnamese production company ran an idea by him.
Danny Mejía: This was their vision, this final, like they put this together.
Alana: And the plan was to bring a group of Vietnamese veterans from the Vietnam War onto the stage while Danny sang.
ARCHIVAL – MR WORLD 2024 FINAL SHOW PUERTO RICO (MR. TALENT), Josept Gómez M.
Danny Mejia singing “You Raise Me Up”: When I am on your shoulders…
Alana: Some were walking, some in wheelchairs, all of them were in uniforms.
Danny Mejía: What you see and what I see are very different things, because obviously when I’m living that moment, I’m thinking: Okay, I need to step here and I need to walk around here, and what’s gonna happen next. And then next thing you know, you see all these veterans coming out, waving their hands. And I, I just go to connect with them. It is a very magical moment.
Alana: It was only later that he realized there was much more to that moment.
Danny Mejía: So you have these ambassadors from Vietnam really trying to send a message to the world through Mr. World saying, our doors are open. Like, it doesn’t matter what’s happened before, you know, we’re holding hands together and I’m American, I’m Puerto Rican, but at the end of the day, American. It’s like come and visit Vietnam, and like, we’re ready for, like –
Alana: Like the war is the war is behind.
Danny Mejía: The war is behind us. And like the, the doors are open.
Alana: The visual of an American citizen, a young Puerto Rican man holding hands with Vietnamese veterans was striking.
In part because nearly 50,000 Puerto Rican men were drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. And Manuel Avilés Santiago’s mom remembers…
Manuel Avilés Santiago: …how in her neighborhood, like there were, there was no guys, I mean, all of her friends were drafted.
Alana: When Danny ended his performance, he saw the reactions from the crowd—and judges. Everything hit him. He felt immense happiness and pride. And also, loneliness.
There was one person he wanted there the most.
Danny Mejía: Mama’s boy here, you know? I was like, wow, if she were alive, she would’ve a hundred percent been in that audience sitting there.
Alana: After three weeks of competition, Danny had gone from a complete unknown to a favorite to win. And then it was time for the final night.
The top two finalists were Danny, Mr. Puerto Rico, and Phạm Tuấn Ngọc, Mr. Vietnam.
ARCHIVAL – Mr. World
Announcer: We will now reveal the winner of Mr. World.
Danny Mejía: Y nos reíamos ahí. Como que no escuchamos, o sea en las cámaras uno escucha.
Alana: They stood side by side on stage – and couldn’t hear a thing the announcer said. He had to repeat himself.
ARCHIVAL – Mr. World
Announcer: Would you kindly face each other?
Danny Mejía: Pero ahí en el momento yo no escuchaba al juez que decía –
ARCHIVAL – Mr. World
Announcer: Would you kindly face each other? There we are. There we go.
Danny Mejía: We turn around face each other. ¿Y ahora qué? ¿Cómo nos agarramos las manos? Y yo digo: “Pero es que no nos vamos a casar. ¿Por qué estamos agarrándonos así de las dos manos”?
Alana: Um, what? Are we getting married? – they thought.
Danny Mejía: Pero nada como que nos pusimos creativos y hicimos ahí como que bien nice una mano encima la otra…
Alana: But they were creative, and placed their hands on top of one another.
Danny Mejía: Y la gente me pregunta que tú estabas nervioso? Que yo para nada.
Alana: Danny wasn’t nervous.
Danny Mejía: Yo hice lo que tenía que hacer. Ya no era contestar una pregunta más.
Alana: He was done competing at that point. He had done his part.
Danny Mejía: You know, what happens happens. So yo confié. Yo dije ok, agarrado de mano de Vietnam.
ARCHIVAL – Mr. World
Announcer: Mr. World 2024 is… Puerto Rico!
Danny Mejía: Yo digo, wow, pasó.
Alana: Danny was in shock.
Danny Mejía: Pero déjame abrazar a Vietnam porque él hizo un tremendo trabajo también.
Alana: But knew he was in Mr. Vietnam’s house. So his first reaction was to hug him.
Danny Mejía: Y él también se lo merecía igual que yo.
Alana: Y está en su casa.
Danny Mejía: Está en su casa y está en su casa. Está en su país aquí.
Alana: And then all the contestants rushed over, lifting Danny in the air, celebrating him – apparently not a common reaction in the pageant world.
Danny Mejía: Y ahí ya llegaron los demás concursantes y me empiezan a cargar en el aire y ya ahí, yo pensé que iba a morir. No podía creerlo, no podía creerlo. Y todavía no lo puedo creer.
Alana: Again, Manuel.
Manuel Avilés Santiago: When you watch Danny with the other contestants you feel something different that you probably wouldn’t see 20 years ago with a more, a hegemonic masculine, beauty king or mister.
Danny Mejía: I kind of get this vision, when I think of winning Mr. World, in my case, it’s not saying like, this is the most attractive man in the world, or it’s not saying that this is the brightest man in the world. But I think it’s like, this is the most husband material, like someone who can do a little bit of everything and can connect with people.
Alana: What do you think it means? That Mr. World is Mr. Puerto Rico.
Danny Mejía: It’s how proud we are of ourselves and of our victories. I think that a lot of countries, they don’t celebrate their victories as much as we celebrate ours. And I think that that just gives it this bigger power. Like the fact that we won, you know, a beauty pageant or that we got top five, or that we went to the Olympics and, we got this, this gold medal and Monica Puig, and then Bad Bunny is ranked and you know, all of this stuff. It’s like, wow. For such a small island, it’s very impressive in itself. But I also think it’s the fact that we celebrate these accomplishments and that we carry our, our flag with pride.
Manuel Avilés Santiago: That’s Danny’s story.
Alana: Again, Manuel Avilés Santiago.
Manuel Avilés Santiago: You know, he’s, he’s fighting for that moment, for that symbolic moment in which Puerto Rico shines on the global stage. And it’s important for us. We love it. We embrace it, we celebrate it.
Alana: Danny started out thinking pageants were frivolous. I did too. It’s tempting to see them that way, or to undermine their power in creating a sense of nationhood. Afterall, they don’t do that literally.
Manuel Avilés Santiago: At the end of the day, does that really translate into, you know, have some sort of political impact? No, not that I’m aware of.
Alana: But as someone who studies pageants, Manuel knows they do have an impact. He pointed to another effect of Danny’s win, something very powerful that starts with him as an individual.
Manuel Avilés Santiago: I think it creates a conversation around the flexibility of Puerto Ricanness, but also the flexibility of notions of masculinity. I think that that’s something really important.
Alana: A guy from San Juan, who had never participated in a male beauty pageant before, went to Vietnam all by himself, battled through multiple bouts of illness, charmed the judges – and his competition – to represent Puerto Rico with dignity.
Danny Mejía: I think that being in Puerto Rico has given me access to this cultural identity, the moral compass that I don’t think would’ve been unlocked anywhere else. I don’t think I would be the same person if I wasn’t raised in Puerto Rico, if I wasn’t Puerto Rican.
Alana: Whenever Puerto Ricans go anywhere in the world, in almost any context, they’re somehow representing Puerto Rico. It can feel like stepping out of the house wearing an imaginary sash. But the beauty pageant scene carries that idea into reality. There are people who are actually Miss and Mister Puerto Rico.
Danny Mejía: No es que yo gane solo, sino que ganamos todos.
Alana: And when they win, we all do.
THEME MUSIC
On the next episode of La Brega: we go to the United Nations, where one day a year, the decolonization committee hears from people representing Puerto Rico. Decades later, not much has changed. So why do people still show up?
This episode was written and produced by our senior producer Nicole Rothwell, with reporting from me and Ezequiel Rodriguez Andino. It was edited by Maria Garcia, Laura Perez, and Marlon Bishop.
Original art for this episode is by Tania Gonzalez. Special thanks this week to Carlos Berríos Polanco, Manuel Clavell, Juan Soto, Mark Pagan, Chris Loperena, and Manuel Avilés Santiago.
The La Brega team includes Nicole Rothwell, Ezequiel Rodriguez Andino, Laura Pérez, Liliana Ruiz, Roxana Aguirre, Maria Garcia, and Marlon Bishop. Our production managers are Jessica Ellis and Victoria Estrada with support from Francis Poon. And our marketing team includes Anhelo Reyes and Luis Luna with support from Paloma Perez and Jackie Hill.
Fact checking this season is by Laura Moscoso and Tatiana Díaz Ramos.
Sound design by Jacob Rosati.
Mixing by Stephanie Lebow, Julia Caruso, Jacob Rosati, and JJ Querubin.
Scoring and musical curation by Jacob Rosati and Stephanie Lebow.
Our theme song is by IFÉ. Original music is by Balún.
Our executive producers are Marlon Bishop and Maria Garcia and me, Alana Casanova-Burgess.
Legal review by Neil Rosini and ProJourn.
Futuro Media was founded by Maria Hinojosa.
La Brega is a production of Futuro Studios. This season of La Brega was made possible by the Mellon Foundation.
Check out our website, labregapodcast.org, for transcripts and more information about this episode.
Talk to you soon. Bai!
