Kaliegh Garris

thumb Kaliegh Garris (born August 21, 2000) is an American TV host, model and beauty queen who was crowned Miss Teen USA 2019. Quotes I wore my hair naturally for the first time at a pageant about two years ago, and it was something very new for me. I had just started wearing my hair naturally and had gotten a big chop, so my hair was finally growing out as it was, curly. And there were some people that were telling me like, ‘oh, maybe you should straighten it.’ But it wasn’t to tear me down. It was really just because that’s what they thought was best. I really had to push out the outside opinions and go with what I was growing into, which was my natural hair. It was really exciting, but nerve wracking at the same time because I knew I would stand out, but in a different way than I had before. That was something I had to learn to be okay with. I had straightened my hair ever since the age of 6. I would get keratin treatments on it every three months, so my hair just started getting shorter and shorter as time went on, due to heat damage. One day I didn’t straighten my roots very well, and one of my friends with natural hair that had been natural her entire life, she really gave me the confidence to really start thinking about it. She gave me a few YouTubers to look at to try to get more information on it and how I would end up taking care of my hair if I were to go natural. For me, it’s really about being confident within myself, and having my natural hair is what I’ve grown to be 100% comfortable with. I can’t imagine going onstage with straight hair because I don’t feel like it would be a true representation of who I am. I also just feel like there are other girls that aren’t necessarily sure if they should compete with their natural hair, who wear their hair naturally in their regular, daily lives. I really think it shows that you can wear your natural hair, and it is professional, and it is beautiful. I just didn’t feel like I fit in because I wasn’t white enough to be white because I didn’t look white, but I was never black enough to be black, because my complexion isn’t that dark. As I grew up, it was really about figuring out where I belonged. I’ve definitely grown comfortable with being mixed, and being both sides, and having a black father and a white mother. Growing up, I was always the shy kid. I liked the attention on me, but I didn’t like going for the attention. I would never start a conversation. I would never go up or raise my hand in class because I didn’t enjoy public speaking at all. Definitely. It was just the fact that I would stutter, I still do sometimes. I didn’t want to start a conversation with somebody I knew or even like a family member because I knew that I would have to speak for a long period of time, and that wasn’t always my favorite thing. My sisters are eight years older than me. I was always the little sister tagging along with them, and when we would go to the store, I’d realize that families would look at my sister oddly, or mothers would pull their kids away from my sister, and I didn’t understand why. My sister is who I’ve grown up with and what I’m used to. I didn’t realize the average person doesn’t have a personal relationship with somebody with a disability. Connecticut’s own Kaliegh Garris: Sister, future nurse,and history-making Miss Teen USA;By HARTFORD COURANT on May 24, 2019 External links Category:Beauty pageant winners from the United States Category:Living people Category:2000 births Category:Women from the United States Category:Women born in the 2000s Category:African Americans Category:People from Connecticut