Miss California 2022 is…

Catherine Liang of San Francisco has been named the winner of the 2022 Miss California competition and have been crowned by Miss California 2021, Jazmin Avalos on June 25, 2022 at the Paul Shaghoian Memorial Concert Hall. Miss San Francisco 2022 will now start her preparations to represent her state at the upcoming edition of Miss America, later this year. She hopes to use her title and strong voice to encourage other women to embrace their inner courage and pursue leadership roles through higher education. She says that she was excited for what is to come and is ready to give back to communities all across the state.

The newly crowned Miss California is a University of Southern California graduate, and works currently as rivate wealth financial analyst at a top financial institute in San Francisco. In 2021, Liang was selected out of over 14,000 applicants to be the CEO for one month at Adecco Group, a Fortune Global 500 company.

She plays the piano during the talent competition, but she is multi talented person.

The 22-year-old beauty queen begun pageantry 9 years ago.  She has not always been the confident person she is today. Growing up in Windsor, Liang described herself as shy and awkward, but driven. She learned dancing at Nordquist Dance Studio and Santa Rosa Dance Theater, swam for the Neptune Swim Team in Santa Rosa and learned piano under Amy Wong as a child.

At age 14, her parents, both engineers at Keysight Technologies in Santa Rosa, encouraged her to enter Miss Sonoma County’s Outstanding Teen competition to get her outside her comfort zone.

“I was so shy that I couldn’t even pick up the phone to talk with my friends, much less get on the stage and have somewhat of a complete stranger ask me interview questions,” Liang said. “My parents said, ‘Hey, you swim, you dance, you play piano. The pageant requires a talent. You can do physical fitness. You could totally just try this out.’”

Winning Miss Sonoma County meant she was eligible to compete in California’s Outstanding Teen pageant, where she placed in the top 10. “We loved it because I think it really helped me just to find my voice,” Liang said.

In 2017, during her junior year at Maria Carrillo High School, Liang pursued the Distinguished Young Woman of California title. She wound up winning the crown and $38,000 in scholarships, which she said helped her pay for college at University of Southern California.

She then set her sights on winning Miss Los Angeles Chinatown. She won the title in 2018, spending a month in China, traveling to all the major cities and meeting business people and city council members.

After that, Liang said she went into a sort of “pageant retirement” as she dealt with several personal struggles. In 2017, her family lost their home in the Tubbs Fire. One month later, she was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease, an autoimmune disease in which the body creates antibodies that attack cells in the thyroid, causing her to be tired and her weight to fluctuate.

“As a 17-year-old in college, you can imagine that’s probably not the greatest thing for self-esteem or confidence,” she said. Her health journey, especially during the pandemic, transformed her into who she is today, she said.

That’s what inspired her social impact initiative, “To Be a Champion of Courage,” a platform on which competitors choose to focus their social advocacy goals. “I guess for me, pageantry initially started off as finding courage to be my best self,” Liang said. “But to be a champion of courage is to inspire others to find that within themselves.”

Liang is next headed to Connecticut where she will represent California in the Miss America competition.

“Obviously it would be amazing and an incredible honor to be the first ever Chinese American Miss America ― especially right now with the prevalence of Asian hate crime and how much our community has been put under attack,” Liang said.

“Unfortunately, I think we need that sense of hope of someone in a position that can really re-inspire courage back into our hearts,” she said.

Liang hopes the next Miss America will continue to emphasize intelligence over looks in future competitions and increase inclusiveness.

“I’m very glad the organization is transforming to focus on that kind of career-driven aspect,” Liang said.

Her favorite example of a relatable Miss America winner is Kira Kazantsev who won in 2015 after performing “Happy” by Pharrell Williams using cups as percussion, similar to the “Cups” song from the movie “Pitch Perfect.”

“It’s cool to see that you can derive talents that are not your traditional dance, piano but more importantly, I think it has asked the judge to get to know the girls’ personally and emotional intelligence,” Liang said. “I think those are two of the most important factors in the world.”