One novel feature of the press attention to the Games was the almost total lack of recognition, at least explicitly, of the Japanese origins of the gold-medal figure skater, Kristi Yamaguchi, a third-generation Japanese-American who speaks no Japanese.
Yamaguchi's ancestry was not discussed. There were no attempts to find any family here, or to trace her roots.
Well, it was a long, long time ago and I didn't even read news papers at that time. But I think that everyone knew her heritage. It is also very hard to believe that the media failed to mention her as a Japanese American whenever she was mentioned.
I remember a TV show featuring Kristi vs. Midori, in which Kristi was
cooking rice. They also reported how their parents supported her, blah blah blah.
Her name was even spelled, not in Japanese characters, but in the separate phonetic alphabet known as katakana, which is reserved for foreign names and words.
Again, I do not think that this author is making a valid point.
If a foreign person actually has a name written in Chinese characters, the media spells the name either in Chinese characters or in Katakana.
For example, Yuna Kim and Mirai Nagasu are spelled in either Katakana or Chinese characters.
For a person like Kristi, however, I think it more appropriate and common to use only Katakana. First, there is no way to spell her first name in Chinese characters. Second, although "Yamaguchi" would have originally been spelled in Chinese characters when her grandparents were in Japan, it would not be appropriate to spell as such when all of her current documents would be only in English.
Back to the topic, I do not think that the media was as indifferent to or unappreciative of Kristi's Japanese heritage as the author of this article claims to be.
Mirai is a lot more hyped for her Japanese heritage. But that's another story because she is still second generation, has dual nationalities, leaving a possibility to compete for Japan, speaks pretty fluent Japanese, and was born in the age when FS is a lot more popular.
During the gala broadcast in Japan, a very popular male Japanese singer who is fluent in Korean interviewed Yuna in Korean. Yuna also spoke a little Japanese, like "thank you." I think that these little things help a lot in enhancing favorable audience responses.
