GEMMA ON LONG BEACH
by Quijano de Manila
"We," says Carmen Guerrero Nakpil of their expedition, "started very badly."
"We arrived late at Long Beach," explained daughter Gemma.
When the pair of conquistadoras, mother and daughter, Chitang and Mimi (as family and friends call
them), landed in Long Beach, it was late in the night and the party was over; the first party for the
international beauties.
"We were supposed," says Chitang Nakpil, "to arrive at Long Beach at 8:30 p.m. in order to be present
at the formal reception for all the candidates; but our plane was delayed in Hawaii and we arrived
in Long Beach at round 10:30 in the night. They had prepared a reception at the hotel. We missed
that. Everybody else was there except us. They had come from different parts of the world - but the
PAL plane was delayed in Honolulu. We did not make our mark at all. Nobody saw us come in."
Gemma is not so gloomy about the start of the expedition: "When we left Manila my friends saw me off:
all my ex-gangmates in school, and my friends who are men. That's better than saying boy friends.
No special one was there. The military band headed by Colonel Cariņo was there, and so was the Boys'
Town band. From Manila we flew to Hawaii and we were in Honolulu for an hour or so. Then we took the
plane to San Francisco and at the airport I saw John Wayne and we had pictures taken together but he
did not put his hat on, so he did not look very glamorous. He looks different without his hat on.
From San Francisco we took a domestic airline plane to Los Angeles, where we were met by my official
hostess during the contest and the girl I was going to room with, Miss Nevada. From Los Angeles we
drove to Long Beach. We went to LaFayette Hotel, where all the contestants were staying. We were late.
Nobody was around. They had all gone to bed."
"It drove me to drink," says Mrs. Nakpil... Because Mama had to keep her spirits up, the first wish-you-luck
wire daughter Gemma got was from the bartenders of the hotel.
Gemma didn't exactly go to bed hungry that night.
"My hostess," she says, "was kind enough to buy me a hamburger, and there was a bowl of fruit in the
room. I got scared when I found a huge santol in my handbag. One of my friends that saw me off must
have put it in my bag. I was so scared because at customs they had asked us if we were carrying any fruit
and I said none, but all the time there was this huge santol in my bag. I gave it to my roommate, Miss
Nevada. Her name is Sylvia Spencer. She said, 'What is this?' But she ate it with relish. It was a
Bangkok santol and she liked it.
"The first thing we did when we got to our room was look up the program. We were curious to see what
the other contestants looked like. We saw their pictures and they were all so beautiful and
glamorous Miss Nevada and I wanted to go home right away."
Next morning, during the breakfast and registration, Gemma met the other international beauties.
"I managed to communicate with Miss Korea and Miss Japan even if they didn't speak English. Miss China
spoke beautiful English. I also made friends with the European girls. I tried my French on Miss France
and Miss Luxemburg. I had taken up French in college; mine isn't very good though. The girls I liked best
were my roommate, Miss Nevada, and Miss Panama, who was very pretty, friendly and funny: a comica.
I also like Miss Ecuador. She wasn't torrid at all. All the English she knew was 'Yes, thank you.'
She kept saying 'Yes, thank you' to everyone who spoke to her, and I told her, 'Look, you better be
careful.' Miss China was friendly too, and Miss Nicaragua. I made friends with almost everybody."
"In the first place," says Mama Carmen, "we have prepared piņa handkerchiefs for all the contestants,
and we gave them away with cards that said greetings from the Philippines. I also gave gifts to the
hostesses. Gemma wrote me (the rules of the contest didn't permit us to talk to each other) that at first
the other girls were suspicious and hostile - 'but I have made other friends with them already,' she said, 'and
I'm wearing them down.' It helped when she won that the other girls liked her. The South Americans
liked her because she spoke Spanish; the Asians, because she was one of them; and the two or three black
girls because she was colored too. Miss America lost to Gemma by only few points; and Miss America
said, "I don't mind losing to Gemma because she is a lady."
Her ladyship got tested the very first day at Long Beach, when the contestants were told to change
into bathing suits for picture-taking. Gemma changed into a Maria Clara instead - and managed to
persuade the contest people to let her stay in that costume.
"I had to explain to them that in the Philippines girls don't usually have their pictures taken in
a bathing suit, and that Filipinos don't like their women to appear in public in bathing suits.
They accepted my explanation, yes, though they must have thought I was terribly prudish."
So, on the very first day of the contest, it was Maria Clara versus the bathing beauty. The lady
in Gemma had won. Later, she would prove that the spirit of Maria Clara could make a bathing
suit innocent.
The Maria Clara was one of several Philippine costumes Gemma took to Long Beach, and Long Beach
was astonished by the variety of the Philippine dress.
"Mimi" says, Mrs. Nakpil. "wore the kimona with patadiong, she wore the malong, she wore the Ifugao
dress, and so forth. People asked, 'Why do you have so many national costumes?' I explained that
the Philippines is a fusion of many tribes and cultures. Besides, they were stuck by the beauty
of our costumes. Well, what are the European national costumes, for example? Peasant costumes.
Bulky, with aprons. They hurt the figure. While the Philippine costumes, especially the beaded ones,
created a sensation."
Gemma took along only one terno, and it was her mother's: an embroidered white piņa by Valera, with
tassels on the paņuelo and a purple train.
"Besides Mommy's terno, I had a fully beaded kimona by Tony Abeto, and an evening gown by Slim's,
a white one with chiffon bands, draped and cut low. I had several suits made of jusi, and the
members of the Philippine Fashion Guild each gave me a dress or a native costume or a gown. They were
part of my prize as Miss Philippines."
Mother and daughter saw precious little of Long Beach in the two weeks they were there. "It's
a resort town like Acapulco," says Mrs. Nakpil," about 20 minutes by car from Los Angeles.
It has a beautiful port, pseudo-mission architecture, a charm of its own. Modern California.
And it's cosmopolitan, with a large international community. The Filipinos are the third largest
group, with the Japanese first and the Chinese second."
"Long Beach - nothing sensational," says Gemma. "And it's hot like Manila. So, all the
European girls were feeling low." But the girl from the tropics was in her element, flowering
vividly in the heat.
MAY 2004