mocha, coco or caramel? 'tis all brown

Interestingly enough, there are more than 1 million Indians in America and no Indian dolls to represent. As a result, we’re forced to adapt and make due with available resources. For example, I remember my Mom bought some cloth from Jo-Ann Fabrics and made a tan doll with a red dot sewn onto her forehead. And that was my Indian doll. The rest were all blonde-haired moppets withvacant blue eyes; they came with names like Cynthia, Adrianna and Melanie.

The Bebe has a very diverse assortment of dolls, but she is brown and I’d like some of her toys to reflect her ethnicity. I’ve done countless searches online and checked out various educational stores. None of them are genetically Indian, but what they don't know won't hurt them.

Beige Baby Stella

I discovered Stella (and promptly dubbed her Bhavani) a few months ago at an educational store on State Street in Media, PA (the store was having a going out of business sale). “Beige Baby Stella” is a workablee shade of brown. You can also find her on Dolls Like Me. The Mister thinks I’m ridiculous for renaming her, and yet, he does refer to her as Bhavani when she makes an appearance...who’s ridiculous now?

The Dolls Like Me web site is cool because it offers dolls in colors like caramel, coco and mocha. I believe the purpose is to give the shopper options on what they feels is an appropriate skin tone for their child. They have a nice selection of Asian, African and Latin dolls.

Livia

Last week I was looking for some baby winter shoes and I stumbled across “Livia” on the Old Navy web site. I was pleasantly surprised to see she was a nice shade of chai with dark hair. Suuure, she’s probably intended to be African or Latin, but now she’s one of us and is reincarnated as Mita. There were three other dolls with an ethnic appearance (Kat, Suki and Sydney). I thought it was very interesting that Old Navy, of all places, would offer such distinctiveness in their dolls.

Indian Barbie

Through the years, Mattel has produced various Indian Barbies. I’d really prefer that my daughter did not associate Barbie, but she will one day be a little girl who likes to dress up dolls and you can’t fight City Hall. The latest Barbie was supposed to be modeled after Aishwarya Rai Barbie, which was kind of exciting. Apparently she turned down the offer and instead Katrina Kaif (another Bollywood movie star and her alleged nemesis) is going to be featured. The doll was scheduled in September, but I was unable to find so much as a photo online. Below is Diwali Barbie.

While the limited selection is better than nothing, it's mildly insulting that toy manufacturers find brown folk to be so interchangeable that they generify their dolls to reflect this opinion. 

I wonder how Livia would look with a bindi....