Feminist turned Cherry Blossom Princess represents Connecticut in D.C. festival
PRINCESS
The Day
Katie Koch
Boston University Washington News Service
April 4, 2009
WASHINGTON—Liz Malerba, a self-proclaimed feminist with a women’s studies degree, came to Washington two years ago to work in government and make a difference for women.
But on Friday night, as she filed in to the ballroom of a downtown Washington hotel dressed in a long white gown and elbow-length gloves, she was filling a more unexpected role: princess.
“Yes, the feminist does enjoy dressing up,” she joked.
As Connecticut’s Cherry Blossom Princess, Malerba was the Nutmeg State’s representative in the annual Cherry Blossom Festival, a 74-year-old celebration of the blossoming of the pink-budded trees and of American and Japanese friendship.
The two-week festival commemorates Tokyo Mayor Yukio Ozaki’s gift of 3,000 cherry trees to Washington in 1912. The festival was started in April of 1935 to correspond with the short peak blooming period of the trees, which surround the Tidal Basin south of the White House near the Jefferson Memorial.
The princesses’ tight schedule ensured that the congressional staffer, who until two weeks ago was the scheduler for Rep. John B. Larson, D-1st District, got to experience the micromanaged life for herself.
Malerba spent last week hustling back and forth between her job on Capitol Hill and a whirlwind series of events, from an afternoon at a food bank in industrial northeast Washington to glamorous receptions in some of the city’s swankiest neighborhoods.
Even more than the busy schedule, the princess program’s strict rules kept Malerba on her toes. Before the week’s events began, she said, the princesses received etiquette lessons and clear wardrobe instructions: no dark colors, all pastels.
“I shouldn’t even be sitting like this right now,” she joked on Thursday afternoon, gracefully repositioning herself as she enjoyed a moment of relaxation on the subway commuting between events.
“This is my first taste of pageantry, if you will,” Malerba said. “But this isn’t really a beauty pageant. It’s an opportunity…to represent your state, to experience what it means to be an ambassador of your state culture and your state values in D.C.”
The princesses are chosen by their respective state societies—social and networking clubs that allow home-state persons the keep in touch—to attend a week of educational and networking events. This year the group visited the Japanese and Lithuanian ambassadors’ homes, watched a Russian fashion show, met with women in the military and heard from a panel of women in government.
On Saturday, the princesses walked in the Cherry Blossom Parade, escorted by Naval Academy cadets carrying their home state’s flag.
The program maintains a somewhat old-fashioned feel, which culminated in Friday evening’s Grand Ball, a cultural celebration-meets-debutante ball complete with sushi buffet, a Color Guard salute and a princess procession. The princesses even have a handler, Princess Chair Trippi Penland, whose objective “is to take care of all my chickadees,” as Penland put it.
While the festival does crown a Cherry Blossom Queen, there’s no cutthroat competition involved: At the ball on Friday night, Miss New Mexico was chosen the winner by the spinning of a wheel with the princesses’ names on it.
The princesses are typically between 18 and 24 years old, and many are college students or congressional staffers. At 25—her birthday was a week before the festival started—Malerba is the oldest princess this year.
“They had to fill out an age waiver for me,” she said, laughing.
Malerba’s stint as a princess was something of a fluke. Her softball teammate Brian Mahar, the president of the Connecticut State Society, approached her and convinced her to fill out the “Princess Papers,” as the application is known.
“Liz was the first person to come to mind for several people on the board,” Mahar said of the society’s decision to sponsor Malerba, the first Connecticut princess since 2003. “She has a great personality, she’s always smiling. She definitely represents herself very well, and she has a great background with the state.”
Malerba’s sister, Angela Malerba, said she was a bit surprised when she found out about the princess program: “I would never picture Liz as the pageant girl.” But after she learned about the program’s professional nature, “I felt like she fit the bill perfectly.
“She was probably a natural-born leader,” Angela Malerba, 22, said. “She’s so passionate about everything she does. She loves where she works. She belongs in D.C, on Capitol Hill.”
Her main passions—tribal rights and women’s equality—are largely a byproduct of her upbringing, Malerba said.
An Uncasville, Conn., native, Malerba grew up enmeshed in both the small town community and tribal life. She attended Montville High School for two years and finished high school at the Pomfret School, a private day school in nearby Pomfret.
Her most formative experiences, though, were with the Mohegan Tribe. Her great-great-grandfather, Chief Matahga, led the tribe from 1937 to 1952, and the family’s tradition of leadership in the tribe remains strong. Her grandmother served on the tribal council for more than 30 years, and her mother, Lynn Malerba, is currently vice chair of the tribe. Her father, although not a member of the tribe, works as a plumber at Mohegan Sun.
Growing up one-sixteenth Mohegan at a time when tribes around the country were fighting for recognition was a formative experience, Malerba said.
“I remember the phone call, I remember everybody in tears,” she said of the day in 1994 when the tribe learned it would be recognized by the federal government. “It’s something that was a very long time coming. My great-great-grandfather tried to get us recognized, and we tried in the ’70s. This was a triumph and also a tribute to all those who had attempted to do this before us.”
After graduating from Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., in 2007, Malerba moved to Washington to intern with Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District. She worked on finding cosponsors and supporters for a bill to mitigate wage discrimination against women, a cause DeLauro has long championed.
“She’s a feminist, I’m a feminist—it just worked out really well,” Malerba said.
In the fall of 2007, Malerba took a job as a staff assistant for Larson. After nine months, she became Larson’s scheduler, a position, she said, that gave her the people skills the Cherry Blossom Festival coordinators prize in a princess.
“You take care of your member of Congress first, but you’re also there for your constituents,” she said. “You learn to find a way to tell people no but also to make them feel that they’re being taken care of.”
Last month, after Larson was elected chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, Malerba switched positions again. She now works in his leadership office performing outreach to members of the women’s, progressive and New England caucuses within the party.
While she enjoys Washington, the pull of the family business and tribal culture is strong.
“I owe a lot of my personality and a lot of my successes to the tribe,” Malerba said. “My end goal is to give back in any way I can.”
Malerba’s sentiments aren’t surprising, according to her mother.
“She’s been involved ever since she was born,” Lynn Malerba said. “We would hope that she would follow in our footsteps.”
Someday, Malerba said, she might want to fill her mother’s shoes as the Mohegan government’s envoy to Washington and Hartford. But for now, armed with no more diplomatic power than a pastel wardrobe and a can-do attitude, she’ll have to settle for being the ambassador from Connecticut.
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