Queens College girl competing in Miss New York USA pageant

A beauty from Queens is in the running for Miss New York USA 2012 – giving residents from her hometown of Rego Park a reason to get hyped up.
Vanessa Bontea, 24, graduated from Queens College last December, and will be competing in a statewide contest under the Donald Trump Miss New York Organization and K2 Productions. She will be representing Queens College and currently working with Susan G. Komen for the Cure Organization as her platform.
“My mom is a Singaporean Chinese, dad a Hungarian,” said Bontea, talking about her mixed descent. Born in Elmhurst Hospital, she grew up in Jackson Heights, one of the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in the world. “When I was young, we moved to Singapore. There, my mom took me to those runway classes to teach me how to fix my pigeon toe.”
Consequently, Bontea signed up with an agency and began to appear in commercials and movies. She stayed in Singapore till she was 8 years old.
“We came back to the states and everyone had to start over. I had to really try to learn English properly and ending up taking English as a major in college,” she said. “I came to understand performing at a much deeper level when learning at school, and realized from humanity aspects as well, not just performing.”
Today, Bontea is still taking acting classes at HB studio in Manhattan and partaking in student films for friends from college.
“I’ve never thought about actually being in a pageant. This is my first time, and I’m a little bit nervous,” she said. “I used to walk around the house in my mom’s silk and toilet paper around me, competing in a pageant of my own imagination.”
“It’d be a good experience even if I didn’t win,” she said. “I believe that you have to do what you love and know who you are. And it’s important to really just go out there and do things for the sake of experience. It’s not always about winning, it’s about life experience.”
In preparation for the upcoming pageant, she has joined a gym and is going to an intensive boot camp every weekend.
“Eventually hard work is going to pay off. I have high hopes and optimism,” she said. “My passion lies in acting. Being in a film or a TV show would be just amazing. That’d be the biggest check on my check list.”
“If you’re only reaching for what’s just in front of you, it’s going to be too easy. You have to aim really high no matter what profession you’re in. And when you shoot that way, you’ll land among the stars.”
If you want to root for Vanessa and support her for the upcoming pageant, you can contribute donations at: www.gofundme.com/VanessaBontea. The money will go towards her $2,000 entry fee and for dresses, as well as to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a non-profit organization for breast cancer.