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ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
Lindsey Yamasaki: Role Model for AA Girls?
n Asian American women's basketball star? As likely as a pair of African American sisters dominating women's tennis! We all know who the tennis sisters are but only a few have heard of Stanford senior Lindsey Yamasaki. The 6-1 Oregon City native turned in one of the best career records in Stanford's illustrious history -- 9th in career points scored and 3rd in career 3-pointers.
Role model for Asian girls?
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As a point-guard admired for a go-for-broke style and lethal 3-pointers, Yamasaki polished her stats each of her four years, ending with a per-game average of 11.4-points. Her final season ended in a 62-59 white-knuckle loss to Colorado in the West Regional semifinal of the 2002 NCAA Championship. For Yamasaki the sting was intensified by missing the game-tying 3-pointer passed off to her by the jittery designated shooter.
What makes Yamasaki a true rarity is that in her first two years she moonlighted with stellar results on Stanford's top-ranked volleyball team before devoting herself to basketball. She was named to the 2001 U.S. World University Games team and was a standout in the eight-game series that ended in victory over China for the gold.
Lindsey Yamasaki is among a dozen graduating seniors most likely to be drafted into the 5-year-old WNBA. The likely starting salary of $40-50,000 is peanuts compared to paychecks in business, law or medicine, but she could have a big impact on a generation of AA girls in search of role models. For AA girls figure skating has become too stereotypical to be cool, tennis is experiencing an AF drought and golf doesn't exactly quicken adolescent pulses. Yamasaki may well be point-guarding a trend -- following hot on her heels are USC junior Kyoko Miller and UCLA freshman Natalie Nakase, two highly promising (albeit currently injured) guards.
One big reason for basketball's growing popularity with Asian girls may well be the white media's obsession with stereotyping Asian women as submissive and/or sexually-available. To nauseated Asian American girls, basketball's in-your-face aggression, wholesome physicality and association with un-geisha-like height looks like the perfect rejoinder.
Is Lindsey Yamasaki a portent of the coming generation of AA women? Or is she an aberration in an ethnic group obsessed with academic achievement and white-collar success?
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WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
(Updated
Wednesday, Jan 22, 2025, 04:38:55 AM)
I never heard of her before this article but thanks for making her a topic! She's a great role model, and I agree that if I ever had kids, I would want them to be like her.
girl
Friday, April 05, 2002 at 03:49:24 (PST)
I saw her on ESPN competing in the year end NCAA women's 3-point shooting contest. Unfortunately she was off that day and did not do very well. However, she got more camera than all the other girls because she showed more personality.
KM, 24
Thursday, April 04, 2002 at 21:03:40 (PST)
wow this girl is hot. 6-1? how'd her parents manage that? is she pure japanese? either way, she's pretty hot. as an asian guy, i've pretty much dated white women, but this is one asian woman who i wouldn't mind going out with.
iconic
Thursday, April 04, 2002 at 16:33:12 (PST)
Well hopefully she will make more money if she is able to pick up sponsors. But if she is doing what she loves that's great.
AC Dropout
Thursday, April 04, 2002 at 15:56:44 (PST)
Whoo-hoo! What a dame! Hey, I don't play basketball and I'm not tall, but I LOVE the idea of Asian women out there on the b-courts displaying some good, kickass in-your-face Asian aggression. Yes, the eds are right: a lot of us Asian women are just plain sick of being stereotyped as short, little passive lotus blossoms, forever simpering. Lindsey obviously won't be able to counteract all of that (media stereotypes die hard), but it's a step in the right direction!
Asian Dominatrix
Thursday, April 04, 2002 at 14:43:31 (PST)
Yamasaki is the new generation of AA women in America. We need to have more of people like her. I played all different kind of sport in grades school, and that definitely gave me the confidence to be the person who's not afraid of anything. When I have children, I want them to have positive images to look up to.
Proud AA woman
Thursday, April 04, 2002 at 14:43:05 (PST)
She's my hero!! ( not heroin, thank you very much )and she's good-looking too. Look at that confident smile on her face!! I have never been so proud of being an Asian female. Please keep up the good work, Lindsay.
Hello Kitty
Thursday, April 04, 2002 at 12:42:50 (PST)
Lindsey Yamasaki..a true phenom. Unfortunately Stanford did not get to the Final Four. But, does anyone know whether there are up and coming Asian American basketball stars in the next two to three years? There is another Asian American at UCLA...her name I believe is Nakase. But, most of our Asian American women are in Volleyball, and a couple are in figure skating.
Asian American Male
Thursday, April 04, 2002 at 12:17:08 (PST)
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