American Girl dolls

vkm's picture
Submitted by vkm on Mon, 07/10/2006 - 10:08.

The Pacific Citizen has an article about the popular American Girl Doll collection and the fact that there is no Asian American doll, and there aren't even any current plans to produce one.

It does point out that there is one Hapa doll named Jess who is half Japanese American and half Irish American. Jess was selected as this year's American Girl of the Year. However, the article also raises the question...why should we settle for 'generic Asian'? Shouldn't there be separate Japanese American, Chinese American, and Hawaiian dolls? Each history is different, so shouldn't there be a demand for each?

Read the article: Are AA Girls Part of American History?, and let me know what you think...

‹ Passing the Torch: Leadership at the Crossroads in the Asian Pacific American Community Nikkei, Japanese American (or Japanese Canadian, Japanese Brazilian, etc), or Asian American? ›

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Dolls and AA
tdk's picture
Submitted by tdk on Mon, 07/10/2006 - 17:03.

The doll company has a duty to the shareholders to design a doll that will sell and be profitable. Will a generic AA doll sell? Beats me.

I personally don't like the classification of "Asian American" because I don't like getting lumped in with dozens and dozens of other ethnic and racial groups; AA is so watered down that every individual group loses it cultural distinctiveness, at least IMHO. I am not "Asian American" - I am "Japanese American."


Japanese American Girl Doll
Submitted by sigrid on Sat, 07/15/2006 - 16:40.

Creating a new Japanese American doll character might be actually very simple for the company. One obvious time setting for the character and her "story" would be 1943, with the character and her family being sent away to a concentration camp.

I would nominate Cynthia Kadohata to write the books.