American Girl Makes Controversial Decision to Discontinue Asian American Doll

By Heidi Zheng
American Girl announced last month that they will archive their first and only Asian American model, Ivy Ling, this September.
A San Francisco native of Chinese descent from the 70s, Ivy Ling belongs to American Girl’s historical collection that aims to “bring to life important times for America.” Also pulled from the line is Cecile Rey, a mixed-raced New Orleans girl growing up in the 1850s.
This decision was met with considerable public backlash. With both “retirees” being colored, some parents question whether American Girl endorses a very specific and limited image of girls that fails to properly represent the current demographics.
According to U.S. Census Bureau’s population estimates in 2011, the majority of children under age 10 are minorities. Washington D.C. has the second highest percentage – 76.5% – of minority children in the country, ranking only below Hawaii. Maryland comes in #9.
Blogger Lisa Owen, mother of two enthusiastic American Girl fans, asked in her open letter to the company on BlogHer, “is it not desirable that we would encourage our girls to expand their knowledge of people of different ethnicities? To embrace our differences rather than focus only on those who look just like us? My children have dolls of more than one race because it reflects their immediate social circle and the country that we live in.”
Senior PR Associate Susan Jevens insists that race is not taken into consideration when American Girls discontinue products; in fact, the first seven dolls American Girl had archived were all Caucasian. The main reason to archive Ivy and Cecile is part of their decision to “move away from our friend-character strategy within the historical line.”
Another spokesperson confirmed with NBC News that Ivy and Cecile’s companions, Ruthie and Marie-Grace, would also be archived alongside.
“Certainly we know that whenever we announce that a character is archiving, it will cause some level of disappointment, especially among our most ardent fans,” Jevens responds to the flood of criticism American Girls has received on their Facebook page, “but the responses from this announcement are not beyond anything we anticipated.”

Jevens also reminds the readers that Asian American doll options are still available in their Bitty Baby line and My American Girl line. The former gears toward younger girls from ages 3 and up; the latter features 18-inch dolls in a contemporary setting. Products of both lines can be customized with over 40 combinations of skin tone, eye and hair color. “American Girl is proud of its positive reputation for diversity and inclusiveness, and it’s an area in which we remain committed to exploring and expanding.”