The Experience of the American Girl

American Girl Dolls represent our country’s rich history… well, some of it.

American Girl Dolls are supposed to portray strong and relatable girls from throughout American history. However, there’s no way that the company can represent the experience of all girls. So which stories should the company choose to tell?

www.chicagomag.com

There was upset among many customers last year over the discontinuation of several dolls. Of the four dolls that were moved to the archives, two were dolls of color. Cecile Rey was African-American and Ivy Ling, who was Chinese-American, was the only doll of Asian heritage in the American Girl collection.

Ivy Ling
americangirlwikia.com

According to NBC News:

To many, the company's decision to discontinue Ivy and Cecile - two dolls of color - underscores the disconnect between corporate decision-making and potential consumer demand among minority communities, particularly in an era that finds the U.S. population becoming increasingly diverse. By 2017, Asian Americans are expected to have a collective buying power of $1 trillion, and African Americans, a collective buying power of $1.3 trillion, according to reports by Nielsen.

Although there is still racial diversity in the "My American Girl" collection, where customers can design their own dolls, there are only three dolls that remain in the traditional line that are not white. Addy is African-American, Kaya is Nez Perce, and Josefina is Mexican-American. When Cecile was first introduced in 2011, many customers were happy to have an African-American doll who, unlike Addy, had not been a slave. The Root complimented the new doll and said that "parents who... simply want to provide their children with a broader picture of the black experience in America, have another choice."

Cecile Rey
www.americangirlfan.com

I think that Jezebel user Addy4ever articulated the concern of Cecile's discontinuation well:

The issue is (like many toys and narratives, and much of history) that American Girl continues to allow the white narrative to be true, viable, and multi-faceted (as it should be! Isn't culture/race's past more than a single event or single type of person?)... 3 of those dolls are random minority characters who are stuck with a single narrative. The ones that attempted to elaborate or describe black culture (for example) as that other than "slave/former slave (Addy)" are being discontinued. The single Asian doll is no more. It's not just about the numbers (which, again, still favors the white doll and therefore, the white girls who get to pick "their story:/character) but about the lack of narrative, the exclusivity and the lack of choices. As a POC... I sorta wished I could have a black AG doll that represented a blackness that wasn't just slavery... the Molly's and Samantha's (real and imaginary) always had a choice. 

 While it is important to teach girls today about the appalling history of slavery in America, it is also important to note that slavery is not the only experience of African-Americans in this country and does not define their entire history. It seems important for the American Girl company to create a variety of dolls of color so that it can portray not only different experiences of race in America, but also stories of girls of colors who face challenges that are not defined by their race. So once again the question comes up, with a limited number of dolls, which stories should American Girl dolls tell? How can they include all of the different stories that make up the experience of being an American girl?
There is one group that is absolutely excluded from the American Girl franchise: the financially disadvantaged. These dolls start at $115 and that's without any additional accessories.