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Sesame Street's new puppet star:

'Sesame Street' debuts Ji-Young, first Asian American muppet | AP News

Progress.  We had to wait until....21st century. Korean-American character... she plays electric guitar and skateboards.

Probably over million of kids of Asian descent in North America watched and are watching Sesame St. at  least in passing before hitting videogames, e c.

 

 

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Speaking of Asian, I was watching a concert by Japanese Breakfast last night, and she is Korean American but said when she grew up in Eugene Oregon she was always taken for Japanese.  I never found why that made her take that name for her group. :wacko:

Hmm, I wonder where Sesame Street got the idea for a female Korean American guitar playing singer. :D

 

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9 minutes ago, Philander Seabury said:

Speaking of Asian, I was watching a concert by Japanese Breakfast last night, and she is Korean American but said when she grew up in Eugene Oregon she was always taken for Japanese.  I never found why that made her take that name for her group. :wacko:

Um..it would be like a German young woman, claiming to be.....French ' to play on perception of the French as a "sexier".  Whoaaaa

I liked how the Korean-American puppet girl explains in a friendly way the meaning of her Korean name ....something where names among children, if foreign-sounding, could so easily be mocked. A child in the playground has to find ways  to defend themselves or become scrappy defending just for their name.

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5 minutes ago, shootingstar said:

Um..it would be like a German young woman, claiming to be.....French.  Whoaaaa

I suspect irony is somehow involved but it is snot my strong suit. :D

 

Let me take a guess though.  Even she mistakes herself for Japanese.  That just leaves the Breakfast part. :D

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Square Wheels said:

Not a fan of overcompensating with pollical correctness.

Is Ernie a white man?  He's orange.  How about Cookie Monster?  Big Bird - Man or Woman or gender fluid?

We got some gender fluid  already. 

Honest, Ernie always sounded white to me. That's ok. We're not kicking him off.

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12 hours ago, shootingstar said:

Sesame Street's new puppet star:

'Sesame Street' debuts Ji-Young, first Asian American muppet | AP News

Progress.  We had to wait until....21st century. Korean-American character... she plays electric guitar and skateboards.

Probably over million of kids of Asian descent in North America watched and are watching Sesame St. at  least in passing before hitting videogames, e c.

 

She's Korean and doesn't play the violin?  WRONG!

The high school in which I taught was 8% Korean and Korean-Americans, and double that for my chemistry and physics classes. It's a population that grew around Fort Meade beginning with GI brides.

If there was a Korean girl who didn't play violin, it was a shock unless she played piano instead.

My Chinese piano teacher, Frances Cheng-Koors, had a lot of 12-18 year-old piano students who were ethnically Chinese or Korean - and most of them played violin, too.

If it wasn't for Asian-heritage students seriously studying music, our symphonies would be seriously short of musicians in the near future. I assisted Frances when she judged and graded young elementary and high-school piano students at a session at the U. of Maryland and the only non-Asian-heritage people in the hall were a Russian-born judge and me.

When you walk through the halls of the world-class music college, the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, the people you pass hauling cellos, etc. are about 1/3 Asian heritage for both the regular college students and the young prep students.  Many of the college students have to practice music for hours every day from around age 8 to get admitted to Peabody.

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10 minutes ago, MickinMD said:

She's Korean and doesn't play the violin?  WRONG!

The high school in which I taught was 8% Korean and Korean-Americans, and double that for my chemistry and physics classes. It's a population that grew around Fort Meade beginning with GI brides.

If there was a Korean girl who didn't play violin, it was a shock unless she played piano instead.

My Chinese piano teacher, Frances Cheng-Koors, had a lot of 12-18 year-old piano students who were ethnically Chinese or Korean - and most of them played violin, too.

Sorry bub, :hapydance:myself and no sibling plays a musical instrument.  I personally don't understand the tendency to have children enrolled in music classes for long, if they don't like it/not interested.  I understand it teaches self-discipline to practice..but honest if they aren't into it, show them another activity.

****I think among some Asian-North Americans (if they have money), it's this status-keeping up with the Jones attitude, to enroll a child in music.  Which I find incredibly annoying.

Out of 7 nieces and nephews (3 different families) who were all enrolled in piano, in the end it was 1 nephew who  played  piano for 4 years (he also was in regional competitive swimming later for 5 yrs.) and another nephew who has natural liking/tendency...for guitar.

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14 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

It is a real stretch to claim Sesame Street wasn't inclusive. 

Yep - more a case of being a bit more explicitly inclusive?  Hard to think that the original crew - especially Ernie and Bert - weren't just white guy puppets.  Eventually, obviously, add in the homosexual angles or whatever Oscar or Elmo or any other character, and you have a pretty broad base of "fantasy" mixed in.  Green, pink, blue, yellow, orange????  Seem pretty non-white?  :scratchhead:  Definitely non-female for most part, I guess?

 

Sesame-Street-Muppets-group-768x456.jpg

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1 hour ago, Razors Edge said:

Yep - more a case of being a bit more explicitly inclusive?  Hard to think that the original crew - especially Ernie and Bert - weren't just white guy puppets.  Eventually, obviously, add in the homosexual angles or whatever Oscar or Elmo or any other character, and you have a pretty broad base of "fantasy" mixed in.  Green, pink, blue, yellow, orange????  Seem pretty non-white?  :scratchhead:  Definitely non-female for most part, I guess?

 

Sesame-Street-Muppets-group-768x456.jpg

Definitely has been less female..if one uses voice as an indicator....which is very real quite often.

Why should it bother  people anyway if there was an Asian-American puppet? I suppose it wouldn't bother anyone if no one  mentioned it and simply put the puppet out there..as a new friend. New friend, let's remember that for kids. The only distinguishing thing is now..the name of new puppet : it's not Eurocentric.  Just like real life and pretty simple concept. New friends with different sounding names, joining the playground.

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6 minutes ago, shootingstar said:

Definitely has been less female..if one uses voice as an indicator....which is very real quite often.

Why should it bother  people anyway if there was an Asian-American puppet? I suppose it wouldn't bother anyone if no one  mentioned it and simply put the puppet out there..as a new friend. New friend, let's remember that for kids. The only distinguishing thing is now..the name of new puppet : it's not Eurocentric.  Just like real life and pretty simple concept. New friends with different sounding names, joining the playground.

I think the addition is a good thing.  I don't think the timing matters - ie Sesame Street was late to the game or in some way "wrong" for not having done it sooner. 

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