Apr 19, 2018 By Harry Funk staff Writer hfunk@thealmanac.Net 4 min read

When she was crowned the first Miss America of Indian descent, Nina Davuluri received too many messages that began “I swear I’m not racist, but …”

“The truth is, I know this story all too well,” Upper St. Clair High School student Krisha Monpara said. “Numerous times in my life, I have been told, ‘Oh, wow! You’re really pretty … for an Indian.'”

Speaking on the stage of the high school theater while cameras captured her conversation, Krisha spoke about stereotypes and her being named this year’s Miss Pennsylvania Teen America.

“The reason I decided to compete for this title was of because of my own inadequacies that I felt throughout my life, the moments that I felt that I didn’t and couldn’t ever fit into this mold of what it meant to be an American,” she said. “Well, I’ve learned that the color of your skin doesn’t define you as an American citizen.”

Krisha was among nine Upper St. Clair students and three faculty members to give presentations as part of an April 11 TEDxYouth event with the theme of youth perspectives. Such events follow the general format of the popular TED Talks – that stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design – videos of which are posted online for free distribution.

Sophomore Matthew Hornak organized the proceedings, dressing in a tuxedo to introduce his classmates and their topics.

“They have a bunch of interesting ideas,” he said. “I’ll talk with them at lunch every day, and they have something new. So I wanted to give them an opportunity to really express it professionally, and then hopefully set a tradition where more students like them can keep going.”

Matthew is enrolled in Upper St. Clair’s International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program.

“As part of the culmination of that program, each student endeavors to complete a personal project,” Timothy Wagner, the high school’s associate principal for program planning and innovation, said. “Matt had always been fascinated with the concept of TED Talks, and so he used this project, along with the requirements around his Eagle Scout project, to bring this idea to me.”

And he was all for it.

“Empowering students to lead their learning and to be contributors to the school environment and the school community is something that we’re always working to cultivate,” he said. “And so this was a great opportunity for Matt to demonstrate leadership, and also for a dozen members of our school community to make their ideas more public than they already were.”

The talk by student Sunny Chai focused on her views of being part of “Generation Z,” people who were born from the mid-1990s through early 2000s.

“We grew up with the Internet at our fingertips and dream of changing the world,” Sunny said. “But the single most defining trait of our generation can be boiled down into just one word: hypercompetitive. An aspect of living in a hypercompetitive environment is being aware that you’re never the best, because there’s always somebody better, smarter, prettier and more athletic.

“It doesn’t stop us from trying, though,” she continued. “We’ve had it ingrained in our minds from birth that we must always compete, because a participation trophy might as well be a pat on the back, and not even from the coach, from the friend’s mom who is driving you home.”

Such food for thought seemed to resonate with the audience, as Matthew observed.

“I was glad to see everybody’s reactions to the talks, and I was glad to see people were actually having fun with it,” he said. “They weren’t sitting there just to get the credits. They were there because they enjoyed it.”