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ASIAMS.NET |
ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
Kristin Kreuk: Next Asian American Beauty?
t isn't a question of droolworthiness. Her looks are dazzling enough to have locked up a lead role in each of her first three auditions, including the title role in an upcoming TV movie. It's more a question of whether most of us would identify hazel-eyed Smallville heartthrob Lana Lang as a fellow Asian.
Kristin Laura Kreuk was born to a Chinese mother and a Dutch father on December 30, 1982. She grew up in Vancouver, Canada. Kreuk, 5-4, had decided to go to college to study forensic pathology until, in her senior year, her drama teacher suggested she go to an audition for a new Fox Family series called Edgement. She was promptly plucked out of the open audition to play a Chinese Canadian high scool student named Laurel Yeung. Even as she won fans in the role, she landed the Lana Lang role for WB's dramatization of Superboy's life as Clark Kent, then the role of Snow White in the ABC TV movie set for release in 2002. Kreuk's star-quality was obvious to all who tuned in for Smallville's premiere last October. Some even proclaimed her the show's main attraction.
But many Asian American viewers didn't even suspect Kreuk's Asian ancestry. Even those who learned of her mother's nationality questioned whether she can be claimed by Asian Americans. Without an Asian surname or obvious Asian facial features, they argue, Kreuk's success would do nothing for the image of Asians in the American media. Others might argue that most African American stars are, in fact, only fractionally of African descent.
Should we claim Kristin Kreuk and other hapas like her as Asian American celebrities? Or should that designation be reserved for those with a more obviously Asian identity?
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WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
(Updated
Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 06:00:19 PM)
[You are either another white asiaphile who thinks they know everything and anything about asian american affairs (in your own perverted ways), or the prime definition of a sellout fool.]
And... you're a K-power freak?
Hapa Stud
Saturday, March 02, 2002 at 15:39:31 (PST)
non-asian
[I have walked down the streets of Vietnam and Thailand and seen women far more beautiful even without the make up and stage lighting that Kristin has available to her. So there !!!!!!!!!!]
They were probably a bit mixed.
My half Thai and half Chinese friend thinks many pure Thai girls are butt ugly. He prefers Chinese chicks.
However, I think (know) there's alot more good-looking Chinese hapa females than Chinese females, by far.
So there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hapa Stud
Saturday, March 02, 2002 at 15:32:01 (PST)
kristen kreuk is beautiful, true. but that is in comparison to average people. she is ok. why not call her asian american? especially if she is known as one and portrays one on tv.
abc college guy
Saturday, March 02, 2002 at 00:49:19 (PST)
I don't live in the States, and Kristin's Dramas hasn't yet hit our television. But as we would all agree shes a beautiful person with a SOUL. Lets not go into this - "shes Asians American but doesn't look asian and therefore is not asian" type of B.S. I am sure if Kristin was reading this forum, to say that she would be disappointed by it is an understatement.
How impressed would you be if people had a discussion about who you are as a person based on your genetic make up rather than who you are as a person based on your character?
People are people, with a soul, and Character is all that matters.
AM (24) from DownUnder
AM (24) from DownUnder
Friday, March 01, 2002 at 21:19:44 (PST)
Funny she doesn't even look asian to me...besides this only promotes that Asian females who marry white males have children that are more beautiful than AF/AM couplings...this is just another media manipulation designed to brainwash people....enuf said...
Ghost Writer NYC-You can hate me but you can't shut me down.
"Revolution is the fuse that ignites change"
Ghost Writer NYC
Friday, March 01, 2002 at 18:31:33 (PST)
Kristin will act in whatever manner enhances her career. So, if the "in thing" is to be Chinese, she will be more Chinese. If being Chinese isn't the thing, she will be more white. Being versatile is what it's all about in this fickle business.
TSJ
Eric@KristinKreuk.net
Friday, March 01, 2002 at 12:28:03 (PST)
To "What's wrong with you people"--
I can't speak for other asian communities, but far as korean communities go, even if the father was korean and the mother white, the child would still be labed as being "twigi"--or hapa or mixed or whatever you want to call bi-racial people.
The thing is in Korea as well as many asian countries, the child of a white male/asian female relationship is denegrated upon an old stereotype that such relationship started out as a relationship between a john and a prostitute.
Couple of years ago, you may remember how the Vietnamese American community boycotted Miss Saigon, precisely because it fed upon the stereotype of the down and destitute asian women turning to prositution to escape from their poverty and misery by the chilvalrous White(or Black) American G.I. coming to their rescue.
Some stereotypes are of course based on realworld observations by cold-hearted people. It is true that there were a lot of asian women/white men marriages whehter it be out of true love or economic trends or both. But often the asian community has been hostile to this relationship as it undermines the respect for asian traditions within the community.
I'm not saying that such relationship is wrong, but rather simply enlightening upon you that asian community wouldn't "claim" asian american based on patrilineal heritage--note the eager acceptance of Tiger Woods.
I have never known any koreans who claim Brenden Lee is chinese. But then again, he was never very popular. But a lot of koreans do know of Phoebe Cates' very small Chinese ancestry--precisely because she was very popular in Korea.
Should Kristin Kreuk be considered Asian American? Well why not. But I feel that the issues that she faces in America as a bi-racial woman is somewhat differnet from the issues the general asian americans suffers from.
Whenever there is a diplomatic row between China and America, the "real" chinese people are often harrassed, as was true for Japanese Americans during World War II. But for people like Kristin Kreuk, one wonders how much empathy they share with a part of her heritage that is not very dominant within the mainstream American culture---nevertheless, she is of Asian heritage.
But who cares? We should ask Kristin what she thinks.
ka
Friday, March 01, 2002 at 10:52:41 (PST)
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