Kristi Yamaguchi won the Olympic gold medal in women's figure skating - the first American to do so since Dorothy Hamill in 1976.
Unfortunately, the Japanese-American Ms. Yamaguchi won the gold medal in 1992, a time when anti-Japanese sentiment was running high in the U.S., and many advertisers preferred to give high-profile endorsements to rising stars like the all-American (read Caucasian) Nancy Kerrigan . . . who never won a gold medal.
Kristi Yamaguchi has bounced back, and she is a popular professional skater.
1 comment:
I would disagree that there was an anti-Japanese attitude at that time, I don't remember that at all. In fact, Ms. Yamaguchi was on boxes of Frosted Wheaties and Special K cereals, and companies would not have done that and risk sales if there had been an "anti-Japanese" bias. I remember seeing her in other endorsements, but don't recall seeing Ms. Kerrigan much anywhere.
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