Growing up in a close-knit family of 12 from Hawaii, Baraquio's history-making victory as the first Asian-American Miss America has taken her half a world away from her homeland and her confidence-building circle of support among her family, friends and the school children who encouraged her to enter the Miss America competition. She admits it was a big adjustment for a young woman who wasn't comfortable in airplanes suddenly to be fulfilling a travel schedule that has upped her frequent-flyer credits some 20,000 miles a month.