Immigrants’ Daughter, Now Rose Queen, Finds ’90 Theme Appropriate

In the beginning, there were 763 other girls. When it was all over, only 17-year-old Yasmine Begum Delawari, the daughter of Afghan immigrants, remained to preside over “A World of Harmony” that will be the theme of the upcoming Tournament of Roses Parade.

Fittingly, Delawari cried when she heard she had been chosen as the 1990 Rose Queen to lead the New Year’s Day parade into its second century.

“Only in a dream way,” did she picture herself becoming the 72nd Rose Queen, the La Canada teen-ager said, tears running down her cheeks as she lost the composure she had held through a month of interviews.

“It was seeing my mother crying and just the excitement, you understand,” she said later, after the announcement Tuesday at Pasadena’s Tournament House.

As an Afghan-American, the high school senior said, “If I saw me walking down the street I would probably consider myself a minority, but it’s not one of the things I think of every day.”

Instead, the Glendale-born beauty likened herself to other girls in La Canada Flintridge, where she said “all the girls try out” for the Rose Queen title.

While Delawari portrayed herself as a typical American high school student, she enthusiastically related the story of her parents’ romance and eventual trek to the United States.

Her mother, Setara Begum, born of Italian and Afghan parents, grew up in New Jersey and later entered the Peace Corps. She was sent to Afghanistan, where she met Noorullah Delawari, the son of an Afghanistan deputy minister. Years later, the two met again in London, where they married.

Her father now serves as board president of the International Institute of Los Angeles, an agency that aids immigrants.

Delawari said she learned to speak Pashto, the language of Afghanistan, from relatives who fled the war in that country in 1980. But her knowledge of the language has since faded, she said.

Delawari serves on her high school yearbook staff and pep club, has volunteered at the International Institute and has taught T-ball and soccer at the La Canada Youth House.

The queen and her six-member court will participate in nearly 100 media and community events.

Delawari said she enjoys public speaking and hopes to attend UCLA and major in law, but she added, “I’m only 17 and my mind changes real fast.”