Early Life
Kristi Yamaguchi was born in Hayward, California, to Jim Yamaguchi, a dentist, and Carole (née Doi), a medical secretary. Yamaguchi is Yonsei (fourth-generation Nikkei). Her paternal grandparents and maternal great-grandparents immigrated to the United States from Japan, originating from Wakayama Prefecture and Saga Prefecture. Yamaguchi's grandparents were sent to an internment camp during World War II, where her mother was born.
Kristi and her siblings, Brett and Lori, grew up in Fremont, California. Yamaguchi attended Mission San Jose High School her junior and senior year where she graduated. While at Mission, Kristi's excellence in skating prompted a "Kristi Yamaguchi Day" on February 24, 1989. Mission held an assembly honoring her, where she was presented with an honorary varsity jacket.
Yamaguchi began skating and taking ballet lessons, as a child, as physical therapy for her club feet.
Read more about this topic: Kristi Yamaguchi
Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)