First-ever Miss Vallejo to work for access for disabled people

VALLEJO – A young Vallejo resident was crowned the city's first Miss Vallejo/Tri-City last month and will represent Vallejo, American Canyon, Fairfield and Benicia in the Miss California pageant next year.

Sydney Allen, 20, was named Miss Vallejo/Tri-City  at a ceremony at the Empress Theatre on Nov. 18. She’ll appear on a float at the Mad Hatter Parade on Dec. 2.

“She's just a delightful and very thoughtful young lady,”  Dr. Lynette Parker, executive director of the Miss Vallejo/Tri-City pageant said. “I think this will be a good experience for her and I think she's a great person to be our first Miss Vallejo/Tri-City.”

Allen will have a full itinerary in 2024 and compete for the Miss California title this summer.

“Miss America is very big on sisterhood and service, so I attend all the other pageants across California and I support my sisters,” Allen said. 

For the community service portion of her duties, Allen said she chose to work on accessibility for the disabled. 

She credits the influence of the activism of her father, Danté Allen, who uses a wheelchair and serves as the executive director for CalABLE, where he works to empower students with disabilities. He was nominated by the Biden Administration to be commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration last year. 

Allen said she did outreach work with nonprofits working with unhoused people in Fairfield, and was dismayed to see police officers throwing away wheelchairs and other belongings during encampment cleanups. She said she wants to make sure the people interacting with that population are properly trained and aware of how to handle people with mental and physical disabilities.

“I know a lot of people that are detained or homeless or in poverty are also suffering from disabilities,” Allen said. “These people cannot survive without their jackets, their tents, right? To us, it's an eyesore, but to them it's all they have, and we are not giving them any better options.”

Allen expressed interest in attending city council meetings and connecting with nonprofits and government officials. “That was what I went to college for,” she said. “I studied social justice and film production.”

But she admits that there may be limitations on how much she can advocate for policy change during her Miss Vallejo/Tri-City tenure. “I signed a Miss America contract the day after I was crowned, so I'm under a legal obligation to remain sort of neutral in the face of politics. “

Parker, who has been a teacher for nearly 30 years, advocated for the Miss America pageant to add a Vallejo/Tri-City area because she  wanted to see more opportunities for the young women in the community and college scholarships. 

“It was something that I thought would give the community something to root for and give the girls something to look forward to,” she said.

Parker said she would like to add a Miss Teen title to the region, but so far there is not a lot of community interest. It could also be possible to break the four cities into separate titles once there is enough participation.

Parker acknowledged that the difficulty in recruiting and retaining contestants may be due, in part, to an impression that the Miss America contest is still just a beauty pageant.

The Miss America competition began in 1926 as an “intercity beauty contest.” The organization has gone through many changes since. 

In June 2018, the organization announced that candidates would no longer be judged on physical appearance and eliminated the swimsuit competition. 

Parker said she suspects that some contestants who dropped out of the Vallejo pageant may have thought the contest was just going to be about the glamor. But 30% of the scoring is based on a private interview. “There is an expectation for you to be able to answer questions and be thoughtful about what your platform would be about what your community service initiative would be,” she said.

Parker said she expects the organization to continue to evolve and change with the times. “Originally it was for white women only,” she said. “There have been height requirements and probably weight requirements. And so now we're in a new place.”

“Last year Miss San Francisco was transgender,” Parker said. “That was a first for the Miss America Pageant, I believe, to have a transgender woman win a local title.”

She said that Miss America will have to contend with changing times, and change and adapt in order to survive.  But, she added, “I think there are some pieces that will remain the same because it has a 100 year history and people who participate in it do so because of that history."