Seemingly every hopeless-romantic 20-something woman in New York (and me), plus a couple of supportive boyfriends and a few errant guys who, shockingly, did not seem to be gay, had crowded into Syndicated, a Bushwick watering house that has been hosting Bachelor Nation watch parties for years. We were there to see find out who tennis-teaching pro Joey Graziadei, the most emotionally intelligent Bachelor possibly ever, would propose to. Would it be Daisy Kent, the bubbly blonde who grew up on a Christmas tree farm and recently got a cochlear implant to correct near-total hearing loss? Or would it be Kelsey Anderson, the sweet, tearful construction manager from New Orleans with enviable Julia Roberts curls who lost her mom to breast cancer six years ago and senses her presence every time she sees a butterfly? (The bar was 100 percent Team Kelsey, who did, in the end, win Joey’s heart.)
What we hadn’t been preparing for was a shocker of an announcement by host Jesse Palmer about who would be the next Bachelorette: Jenn Tran, the first Asian American lead in franchise history.
“We’ve wanted it to be Jenn ever since she stepped out of the limo!” screamed one of two Vietnamese American women sitting next to me. They’d been instant fans of Tran, a fellow Vietnamese American with immigrant parents who’s studying to be a physician assistant. She told Palmer that she’d been in her scrubs working in the emergency room the day before putting on a gown to go on national television.
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