Rachel Webb bio

Rachel Webb, 24, was born to Erma Webb and Chun Aquino in Honolulu, Hawaii. Erma Webb was doing relief work on the small island of Molokai when she dated and became pregnant by Chun Aquino, a Filipino migrant worker. By the time Rachel was born, her father was gone.

Rachel was well aware of her mixed heritage, although the Hawaiian islands feature dozens of different ethnic backgrounds. Depending on which group was taunting her, she was either laughed at as a haole or derided as a poor Filipino.

Undaunted, Rachel excelled at school, her hard work and determination compensating for what she lacked in natural talent. She was active in school life and participated in many after-school activities.

Rachel's hours in the classroom were the only time she was out from under her mother's thumb. Erma picked out Rachel's clothes, packed her lunch, and told her exactly when to leave the house and when to return. Some of Rachel's teachers from that time thought Erma's iron hand was the reason Rachel was so reluctant to leave school each day.

When Rachel was nine, her mother moved them to Clarksdale, Mississippi, where Rachel was once again an outsider. This time, she was one of two non-African American students in the school. As usual, Rachel poured herself into school activities to avoid her mother's domination.

As Rachel grew up, her mother began entering her into beauty pageants. Erma selected her costumes, choreographed her talent routines, and wrote her speeches. Rachel didn't necessarily enjoy the pageant circuit, but she did enjoy winning and the opportunities it provided her to escape her mother's control.

Even as Rachel excelled in pageants, she still chafed at her mother's domineering tendencies. At dinner, Erma told Rachel precisely what she must eat and drink and how much.

At one evening meal, Rachel boiled with fury as Erma kept telling her to eat one more ounce of chicken, but no more. Rachel ended up scarfing the food down, hardly chewing it, just to finish the meal as quickly as possible. Soon after she retreated to her room, Rachel began feeling ill. She had eaten too fast, and in short order, she was in the bathroom, vomiting.

She didn't tell her mother what had happened. Instead, she turned on the shower to cover the noise, cleaned up, and went back to her room. Her throat hurt from the acids, but for the first time in years, Rachel actually felt good. She felt happy. The next time she felt the anger and resentment start to roil, she remembered that happiness and strove to recapture it.

Eventually, Erma moved to Oxford, Mississippi. She thought the more cultured city, with its university and rich literary heritage, would greatly benefit Rachel and her pageant career.

Even though Oxford was by far the most diverse and cultured place Rachel had lived, she still hated it. It was still a small town in the poorest state in the nation. She longed to travel and experience more, and she ached for freedom.

When Rachel met Barbara Dubois, she loved how Barbara seemed in charge of her own life, and the two bonded. Observers noted that, although they were competitors, they seemed more like sisters, encouraging each other through each pageant's trials. Others said that when Rachel and Barbara exchanged glances, it was as if they shared an unspoken language of close confidants who know each other's secrets.

This year, Rachel was consumed with winning the Yoknapatawpha County Literature Festival Pageant and using that as a springboard to the Miss Mississippi competition. Friends said Rachel felt that winning both crowns would give her enough money, contacts, and sponsors to finally take charge of her own life.

They remarked how Rachel said she would do anything to win the Yoknapatawpha pageant because her whole future depended on it.