Talk:Crystal Kay

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Just wondering... why do people feel the need to include a comparison to Amerie in this article? Fadeblue 01:42, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Probably because their parentage is the same? chsf, 01:57, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] who is Adam Klimkowski?

I checked a bit, but couldn't understand why this name is referenced. Perhaps this line should be removed.

[edit] Official model of the video game character Lenne?

Other than the fact that both are songstresses, there is no futhur connection, not to mention that it was Koda Kumi who did the motion acting and singing for Lenne/ Yuna.

[edit] She is not American

She is being listed under several categories such as "Korean American" and "African American musician". At most, she is "Korean-Japanese" (i.e. Zainichi which is also already listed) and "African-Japanese". It is only her father who has a background of American nationality, so it is not accurate to place her in any *-American categories. The point to remember is that the first word describes ethnicity (African/Korean) while the second word describes nationality (Japanese). "American" does not apply anywhere. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.6.99.30 (talk) 10:43, 23 December 2006 (UTC).

Being Born in an a military of Amerincan She is considered American. She cannot possibly be japanese, since she dosnt have an once of japanese blood. So in a since she Korean-African-American —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.186.33.74 (talk) 12:41, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] She is DEFINATLEY American, among other things

Her biological father is African-American and has American citizenship, as he is a high ranked U.S. military personnel stationed in Japan (he may be retired). This makes her African-American, surely American by birth holding American citizenship. When U.S. Military personnel have children abroad, as long as it is documented, they are the equivalent of U.S. citizens born on American soil. Furthermore, when U.S. military personnel stationed abroad live on a U.S. military base, it's the equivalent of living in America, on American soil, despite the non-American surroundings. Subsequently, many people adopt the identity of the nation they are stationed in, whether or not they have a parent native to the region/culture. This happens a lot among military families.

Offspring of military personnel stationed abroad have a very unique disposition when in comes to linguistic, cultural and national identities, to the point where it's less dependent on the perception of others, but to their own choosing. Having a non-native born American parent makes this more interesting.

In part she has American cultural and linguistic heritage as she has never denied it and it has been part of her life through her father, his job function (which is most likely what brought him to Japan, from America, in the first place), and her paternal family (she mentioned having contact with them growing up in one of her interviews and often visiting the US. So, she embraces that side.).

Her African, sub-Saharan, ancestry is traced to the Americas, which means that she is a descendant of African Slaves and the potpouri of ethnic and non-socio racial mixing that has occured among their descendents over the past ~400 years, here in America. Certainly, this also makes her African despite the high probability that she has no recent direct cultural, tribal or liguistic ties to the continent aside from her distant ethnic ancestry and the western culture that evolved from the original African culture(s).

Her American ancestors shed blood, sweat, tears, suffered, fought and died for her right to be a citizen, a citizenship that should be carried with the bloodline no matter where the posterity is born or what other cultural or ethnic identies they come to inherit. How could one be denied US. citizenship when their parent's sole duty is to protect and safeguard this country? In my opinion, it SHOULD be by default that she and others like her have American citizenship, as the essence of this country was built on the backs of their ancestors.

She is American at best. In addition to being Korean, through her maternal ethnic and cultural heritage, she is also Japanese by birth, linguistic and cultural heritages.

She IS, affirmatively, all of the above:

  • Racial Heritage: Asian, African-American;
  • National Heritage: American, Korean (even though she is a 3rd generation political ex-communicate of Korea, she is still Korean by birth-right) , Japanese;
  • Ethnic Heritage: African-American (which constitutes a varying mixture of anything from sub-Saharan African, Amerindian, Arabic, Semetic, Asian, European and a possible number of other non-socio races and ethnicities), Korean Zainichi.;
  • Linguistic Heritage: English, Japanese, Korean;
  • Cultural Heritage: American, African-American, Japanese, Korean Zainichi

If nothing else, the genre of music she performs is American. Her artform is American inspired!


As Wiki is often solely academic, especially when we only have limited resources to build upon, I think you got the general gist of things right.
Yet, I can't help but feel that ultimately this degenerates into a hotly-debated subject of how to classify one's origin or nationality in today's globalized world. There are varying opinions and theories on this as, for instance, I could suddenly find out that I have some odd alien heritage that suddenly changes my classification.
In more abstract terms, I think a lot of this has been allowed to remain vague and undefined just because there aren't yet enough people with complex heritage out there to bring the debate out in the open. As you imply she is an interesting case so I personally will not come to any conclusion about this, more out of respect for such individuals, other than to say that there are many angles one can take (yours being one of them).
But there is some part of me that finds all this disturbingly academic and self-indulging (of us third party) to classify a living individual in such manner, almost like a specimen in a test tube. In parts it feels like we are talking about a breed of horse, perhaps because sometimes we can get bogged down with theory and technical correctness, and end up with a dehumanizing undertone unintentionally, be it with a lot of respect for that individual.
I do realize, however, that to complete a Wiki article this sort of debate may be unavoidable. If a classification may be considered to be too opinionated at this point in time, we may need a more cautious approach, even omitting it entirely. I wish she could herself get involved in writing this article. Jgrey (talk) 01:21, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why call her Korean?

Crystal Kay's mother is not Korean, she's third generation Japanese. Just because her great-grandma emmigrated to Japan, why should that make her Korean now? I bet she doesn't even speak Korean. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.121.151.174 (talk) 10:19, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

That is technically correct as varified by 'Focus' magazine. Edit applied, without removing the Korean reference, to keep as much information as possible. Also removed inaccurate commentary in discussion. Jgrey (talk) 08:01, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Citations and Trivia

I have a concern about a lack of credible citations in the text. This article was virtually untouched for a year and still there are no citations from the mainstream media -- English or Japanese language. Can't the trivia section be deleted by incorporating that information into the text with citations? This article needs help before the citation tag can truly be taken off, which is why I reaffixed it. A little mollusk (talk) 02:18, 6 March 2008 (UTC)