Like many little girls, a young Kristi Yamaguchi loved playing with Barbie. With a schedule packed with ice skating practices, her Barbie dolls became her 'best friends.'
Like many little girls, a young Kristi Yamaguchi loved playing with Barbie. With a schedule packed with ice skating practices, her Barbie dolls became her "best friends."
This isn't Yamaguchi's first doll depiction. In the '90s, touring show Stars on Ice put out a line of dolls modeled after notable skaters. The Barbie version is a lot more detailed. She appreciates that the doll's release comes on the high heels of the blockbuster "Barbie" movie last year. Her daughters, ages 18 and 20, are fans of the Oscar-nominated film. Their initial reaction to their mother being a Barbie? Disbelief.
Since then, the toy market has evolved somewhat with big companies like Mattel diversifying and independent entrepreneurs filling the void. Two Asian doll lines - Jilly Bing and Joeydolls - launched within the last year, one by an Asian American mother and the other by an Asian Canadian mother. Both could not find dolls that looked like their daughters.
"There are so many Asian American athletes but they're just not propped up in a way that athletes of other racial groups are," said Cheryan, who researches cultural stereotypes and their impact on race and gender disparities. "Having a match in terms of racial identification or gender or both," she said, is important in creating effective role models for kids.
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