by Julie Young
Recently, I had the unfortunate experience of spending a hellacious morning and afternoon at that spider’s lair for little girls, the emporium of mad consumerism, the temple to mini-estrogen and their mothers, fathers, grandparents or others, who spend money on them, otherwise known as The American Girl store.
Even before I had children, I swore up and down that I would never step foot in that place. I had witnessed the mile long lines that sometimes snaked around the block and I had no desire to ever add to the American Girl store’s bottom line. But add to the bottom line I did, on a recent summer-like day in October.
Rewind to about a week before my trip to the American Girl store. It was a bright Sunday morning and I was getting ready for a family outing. From my bathroom, I heard my four year old daughter, who is Black-Korean, say something to my husband about having “white in her skin.” I did not hear her exact statement but I felt the hairs on my body raise and my heart start to beat a little faster, as my protective mama bear instincts kick-started into high gear.
My husband questioned her statement, but I could not hear the conversation very well. This was not the first time one of our children had mentioned the color of their skin – but it was the first time our daughter had mentioned it, possibly in relation to beauty.
My husband and I welcome talk about race and skin color from our children. Our children’s first comments about skin color were made shortly after they turned three. I do not understand parents who think it better to ignore the issue altogether. Ignoring the big elephant in the room is never a good strategy. America now has generations of (adopted) people of color that were brought up in white households and communities that ignored the race and color issues. The majority of these people have grappled, sometimes to heart wrenching lengths, with issues of self-identity in relation to race. Add the specter of beauty, and what it means to be “beautiful” in America, to the race issue and you have a recipe for disaster – especially for our young girls of color.
Lately, I have been watching Korean movies and dramas. I have found myself wishing I looked like the Korean actresses! This is an odd experience for me, as a grown woman, to be wishing I looked like these beautiful Korean women. It’s odd because it’s never happened before. My exposure to beautiful Korean women (and men) has been non-existent.
The steady barrage of the white, skinny, celebrities with blonde hair and fair skin that are the “standard of beauty” in this country is damaging to the pysches of young girls of color. (For obvious reasons, it is also damaging to white girls.) Children of color need to see positive imagery that reflects themselves. I wonder how my self-esteem would have been affected, had I been exposed to beautiful Asian women as a young girl growing up in a white world.
When I was 13 my (adoptive) mother took me on my first trip back to Korea. We had a four-hour layover in Japan on the way to Korea. I remember as a 13 year old girl, being absolutely dumb-struck at how beautiful the women were in Japan. It was the first time I had seen so many Asian women and I was shocked at how beautiful they were. As crazy as it sounds, the thought never occurred to me that an Asian woman could be beautiful. I accepted as fact that because I was Asian, I was ugly. One time when I was in eighth or ninth grade, there was a blonde boy that I liked. We were friends and he told me that he would never go out with me because I was Korean. I did not blink an eye at his statement because, to me, it made perfect sense then.
Even before I had children, I recognized the importance of being conscious of the images that were around my apartment. For years I was obsessed with fashion magazines. There was a time when I had subscriptions to almost every fashion magazine in existance. My husband would constantly remark that such magazines would not be in the house when we had children. Then one day, when I was in my early thirties, after having read these magazines since I was a teenager, it hit me like a ton of bricks! I realized that reading these magazines always, without fail, made me feel like crap about myself. After reading one of these magazines, I would inevitably feel as if I was not thin, pretty, or rich enough. Why on earth was I subjecting myself to such torture? I am better off without the images that are revered in these high fashion magazines.
Along these lines, my husband and I do not allow our daughter to have white dolls. Despite the fact that the American Girl store prides itself on having dolls of all ethnicities there are, essentially, only two black dolls. One of the black dolls is from the “historic” line of dolls and is a slave girl. Really?
The other black doll is from the “just like me” line where the dolls come in different varieties – supposedly. This black doll is described as having “dark skin, curly dark brown hair and brown eyes.” But in reality, the doll has light skin, long ringlet lighter brown hair and brown eyes. (Am I the only one who sees that these dolls are all, in essence, the same doll?) I have no idea which of these “just like me” dolls is supposed to be Asian because none of them look Asian!
As my daughter and I walked around and around the store, I had to say no to the first couple of dolls that she wanted. (To my great joy she did not ask for any blonde dolls.) She asked me why she couldn’t have the dolls and I told her it was because the dolls don’t look like her. She got it. She did not complain about it. She just looked for a doll that looked like her. This was no easy task. We settled on the above mentioned “dark skin, curly brown hair and brown eyes” doll – even though, the doll isn’t all that dark skinned nor does she really have curly hair. I grudgingly bought the doll for my daughter. (The reason as to why we were in the store for so long is another whole story. Love you Mom and sis!) My daughter named her doll Jaya (ok maybe mama helped a little with that) and she seems to really like her doll. Just a couple of days ago Great-Grandmother, also-known-as the Gammy, was introduced to Jaya and the first thing the Gammy said was that the doll looked just like our daughter. Ha! I guess it’s not all bad.
Wanting my daughter to grow up with self-confidence and self-love is something all parents wish for their children. As the mother of a girl of color, though, I have extra challenges in helping to establish a strong foundation of self-confidence and of self-love within my daughter. She will inevitably wish for differences in her appearance, as most girls and women do. (Myself included!) To some extent, this is normal. We will deal with that. What I hope we will never have to deal with is my daughter wishing she was a different color, or a different race… the way that I did as a girl. I want her to always see and know the all-American beauty that she is with her perfect brown skin and her perfect brown curls.
She is my perfect American girl.American Girlby Julie Young
Recently, I had the unfortunate experience of spending a hellacious morning and afternoon at that spider’s lair for little girls, the emporium of mad consumerism, the temple to mini-estrogen and their mothers, fathers, grandparents or others, who spend money on them, otherwise known as The American Girl store.
Even before I had children, I swore up and down that I would never step foot in that place. I had witnessed the mile long lines that sometimes snaked around the block and I had no desire to ever add to the American Girl store’s bottom line. But add to the bottom line I did, on a recent summer-like day in October.
Rewind to about a week before my trip to the American Girl store. It was a bright Sunday morning and I was getting ready for a family outing. From my bathroom, I heard my four year old daughter, who is Black-Korean, say something to my husband about having “white in her skin.” I did not hear her exact statement but I felt the hairs on my body raise and my heart start to beat a little faster, as my protective mama bear instincts kick-started into high gear. My husband questioned her statement, but I could not hear the conversation very well. This was not the first time one of our children had mentioned the color of their skin – but it was the first time our daughter had mentioned it, possibly in relation to beauty.
My husband and I welcome talk about race and skin color from our children. Our children’s first comments about skin color were made shortly after they turned three. I do not understand parents who think it better to ignore the issue altogether. Ignoring the big elephant in the room is never a good strategy. America now has generations of (adopted) people of color that were brought up in white households and communities that ignored the race and color issues. The majority of these people have grappled, sometimes to heart wrenching lengths, with issues of self-identity in relation to race. Add the specter of beauty, and what it means to be “beautiful” in America, to the race issue and you have a recipe for disaster – especially for our young girls of color.
Lately, I have been watching Korean movies and dramas. I have found myself wishing I looked like the Korean actresses! This is an odd experience for me, as a grown woman, to be wishing I looked like these beautiful Korean women. It’s odd because it’s never happened before. My exposure to beautiful Korean women (and men) has been non-existent. The steady barrage of the white, skinny, celebrities with blonde hair and fair skin that are the “standard of beauty” in this country is damaging to the pysches of young girls of color. (For obvious reasons, it is also damaging to white girls.) Children of color need to see positive imagery that reflects themselves. I wonder how my self-esteem would have been affected, had I been exposed to beautiful Asian women as a young girl growing up in a white world.
When I was 13 my (adoptive) mother took me on my first trip back to Korea. We had a four-hour layover in Japan on the way to Korea. I remember as a 13 year old girl, being absolutely dumb-struck at how beautiful the women were in Japan. It was the first time I had seen so many Asian women and I was shocked at how beautiful they were. As crazy as it sounds, the thought never occurred to me that an Asian woman could be beautiful. I accepted as fact that because I was Asian, I was ugly. One time when I was in eighth or ninth grade, there was a blonde boy that I liked. We were friends and he told me that he would never go out with me because I was Korean. I did not blink an eye at his statement because, to me, it made perfect sense then.
Even before I had children, I recognized the importance of being conscious of the images that were around my apartment. For years I was obsessed with fashion magazines. There was a time when I had subscriptions to almost every fashion magazine in existance. My husband would constantly remark that such magazines would not be in the house when we had children. Then one day, when I was in my early thirties, after having read these magazines since I was a teenager, it hit me like a ton of bricks! I realized that reading these magazines always, without fail, made me feel like crap about myself. After reading one of these magazines, I would inevitably feel as if I was not thin, pretty, or rich enough. Why on earth was I subjecting myself to such torture? I am better off without the images that are revered in these high fashion magazines.
Along these lines, my husband and I do not allow our daughter to have white dolls. Despite the fact that the American Girl store prides itself on having dolls of all ethnicities there are, essentially, only two black dolls. One of the black dolls is from the “historic” line of dolls and is a slave girl. Really? The other black doll is from the “just like me” line where the dolls come in different varieties – supposedly. This black doll is described as having “dark skin, curly dark brown hair and brown eyes.” But in reality, the doll has light skin, long ringlet lighter brown hair and brown eyes. (Am I the only one who sees that these dolls are all, in essence, the same doll?) I have no idea which of these “just like me” dolls is supposed to be Asian because none of them look Asian!
As my daughter and I walked around and around the store, I had to say no to the first couple of dolls that she wanted. (To my great joy she did not ask for any blonde dolls.) She asked me why she couldn’t have the dolls and I told her it was because the dolls don’t look like her. She got it. She did not complain about it. She just looked for a doll that looked like her. This was no easy task. We settled on the above mentioned “dark skin, curly brown hair and brown eyes” doll – even though, the doll isn’t all that dark skinned nor does she really have curly hair. I grudgingly bought the doll for my daughter. (The reason as to why we were in the store for so long is another whole story. Love you Mom and sis!) My daughter named her doll Jaya (ok maybe mama helped a little with that) and she seems to really like her doll. Just a couple of days ago Great-Grandmother, also-known-as the Gammy, was introduced to Jaya and the first thing the Gammy said was that the doll looked just like our daughter. Ha! I guess it’s not all bad.
Wanting my daughter to grow up with self-confidence and self-love is something all parents wish for their children. As the mother of a girl of color, though, I have extra challenges in helping to establish a strong foundation of self-confidence and of self-love within my daughter. She will inevitably wish for differences in her appearance, as most girls and women do. (Myself included!) To some extent, this is normal. We will deal with that. What I hope we will never have to deal with is my daughter wishing she was a different color, or a different race… the way that I did as a girl. I want her to always see and know the all-American beauty that she is with her perfect brown skin and her perfect brown curls.
She is my perfect American girl.
