Header photo courtesy of Bam Woods
Wherever the courage within AshleyCae Lee-Miranda to share her own story came from, it has been visible from an early age.
“The first time I was ever on stage I was nine,” Lee-Miranda said. “I was the youngest person to perform at a Barnes & Noble open mic night, in front of all these grown adults. I remember going up there and being so nervous. But I also felt so at home and alive on the stage that the nervousness just kind of went away. And as soon as I did that, I was like, ‘Oh, this is what I wanna do.’”
Lee-Miranda describes herself as a quiet and reserved person, but getting on stage opens her up and she becomes more outspoken, particularly for causes and people she believes in.
“When I’m on stage or I’m using my voice, whether that’s in activism or my poetry or singing, I get to become like the more outspoken, broader me,” Lee-Miranda said.
Lee-Miranda was born and raised in Flint, graduating from Flint Southwestern Academy in 2013 and attending Mott Community College and the University of Michigan-Flint. She’s always been drawn to creative pursuits, writing and performing spoken word poetry and music. Much of her work can be found on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, among other platforms. Some of her early inspiration for exploring her creative side started in her own household.
“My father was a poet and he was the one who kind of inspired me to wanna write,” Lee-Miranda said. “I grew up in a household with a bunch of brothers. And so I wanted something that was like, ‘Hey, this is my thing, this is what I’m good at.’ So I started writing poetry, and I really got into it around the time I was probably like nine because I realized poetry was my voice. I realized it was something that helped me express myself. And then through the years as I got older, I got into more professional work.”
Lee-Miranda has always been social justice-oriented, and involved in activist networks in the community. But her own personal battles inspired deeper activism. She was first diagnosed with cancer around 2018, and then again in 2021. Initially, she was apprehensive about sharing something so personal through her art and performances.
“This battle with cancer is not my first, and I dealt with it really alone (the first time),” Lee-Miranda said. “I didn’t tell anybody other than like my mother, nobody knew. And I realized how lonely I felt, but also I saw how lonely other people were. And so when it happened again, I was like, this time I refuse to be quiet. I’m not going to minimize or downplay this to make other people comfortable. This is not something that you can deal with alone. Cancer’s a very hard battle. And I wanted people to see that you don’t have to sit with all that by yourself. There are people who care. There is community within the battle.”
Now, her experience with cancer has informed her activism as she’s become a big proponent for public health and healthcare reform. Those themes show up in her artistic and community work. She faced her diagnoses with courage, and shared her story on local and national platforms. She spoke during events hosted by the Flint Community Cancer Consortium, a community-academic partnership that brings together residents, researchers, healthcare providers, and organizations to address cancer concerns in Flint that was created in response to community worries about cancer rates and encourages early detection.
She’s also competed on the pageant circuit, first being crowned Ms. Michigan Woman and then Ms. USA Woman last year. The Ms. USA Woman organization is a national pageant system focused on empowering women by building confidence, communication skills, and stage presence through competition and training. It promotes inclusivity by welcoming women of diverse backgrounds and emphasizes personal development, community involvement, and self-expression as key parts of the experience. Lee-Miranda competed based on her community work and with a desire to show her authentic self.
“I competed bald, I didn’t wear a wig,” Lee-Miranda said. “It was kind of a choice I made a lot of times in pageant systems. Women get deducted if you are bald, or let’s say if you have a skin condition (in some pageants). And so for me, I said, well, I’m gonna compete bald and in any pageant I do, I’m gonna be bald. I was so nervous because I was the only bald competitor. I’m also the only competitor who was battling cancer and had an obvious different look or appearance.”
They competed over two days at the nationals in Georgia, including an interview segment, fashion, talents, and a runway exhibition.
“The runway’s my favorite category because that’s where you wear your formal ware,” Lee-Miranda said. “I actually end up having one of the highest scores overall in the categories.”
She enjoys competing in pageants in part hoping that it encourages other people to show up in spaces and be themselves.
“It was exciting for me because my whole campaign was ‘the rise of the baldheaded queen,’” Lee-Miranda said. “I was even able to get billboards put up. It was exciting for me because I’m this girl that’s from Flint, Michigan, we have this stigma of the whole dirty water or the crime, and here I am. I’m bald, I have cancer. I’m from this place that people know nothing about or what they do know about is very minimal. And I bought the crown back home. And now I use my title to do other community work with other women, other young girls and show them, even competing in pageantry, which has such a high beauty standard, there’s spaces where you can have your beauty but also have your intelligence and the things you love to do.”
Lee-Miranda also was recently recognized by the North American Music Awards in Mansfield, Ohio. She won the Survivors Award at the event, which recognizes a wide range of hip hop and gospel musicians, poets, artists, and other genres. Lee-Miranda also performed at the event.
No matter what her platform is, her goal is always to encourage others to share their stories.
“A lot of my work I do is empowering people to tell their story because nobody can tell your story better than you,” Lee-Miranda said. “It (inspiring others) means that I am following my purpose. We all have a purpose in the world. And for me to be able to utilize my story to help others just makes me feel like I’ve accomplished my divine purpose. It gives me peace and it helps me be okay if tomorrow comes and I’m not here. I did my part in the world and it makes me just feel good.”
Lee-Miranda is also proud that, wherever she goes, she represents her hometown and the arts community here that she adores.
“There’s nothing like Flint,” Lee-Miranda said. “The music and the art here is so powerful that it just draws me back home every time. Art really became my outlet to allow myself to be vulnerable, but also a way of leaving my voice behind for people.”
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