Despite being bullied as a child because of her collector father and sweeper mother, Anna Sueangam-iam made it to university as well as to the Miss Universe pagea nt through hard work, never denying her past.
This year’s edition of Miss Universe left several stories and anecdotes before crowning the current Miss United States. Among the most outstanding was the story of effort and humility of Miss Thailand, who at all times was proud of her beginnings.
The model made headlines after it was revealed that she came from a humble family made up of a garbage collector father and a sweeper mother. She even received harsh adjectives such as “the beauty queen of garbage”.
Beyond her beauty, Anna Sueangam-iam has been listed as one of the most inspiring stories of the beauty pageant, where she revealed the hard beginnings to make it to where she is today.
“I’m a person who grew up in a garbage dump,” the model explained on the sidelines of the pageant. Her father was a garbage collector, her mother was a street sweeper, and her family lived in one of Bangkok’s poorest slums. As a child, she had to collect garbage and contribute to help the precarious family economy, which was the subject of ridicule of her schoolmates because, despite her situation, she always made it clear that she dreamed of being a beauty queen.
Despite the fact that her beginnings were complex and required a lot of effort, Anna didn’t let herself be defeated by prejudice and kept fighting for her dream. Thus, she managed to graduate from the University of Kasetsart with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Although she was even called a “trash beauty queen”, all the criticism didn’t bring down Anna Sueangam-iam, who decided to send a powerful message to the world after wearing a dress made of beverage can parts, which she called “hidden precious diamond dress”. All in honor of her parents.
After learning about her humble story and how she came out on top, Miss Thailand said, “You shouldn’t get stuck in the murky environment you were born into. Believe that you have the power to change your own life for the better.”