Years ago, whenever I would travel somewhere, I would buy a doll from that country for Amy, the daughter of one of my teaching colleagues. Well, Amy is now all grown up and has two daughters of her own now. So I am now buying dolls for them.
On one of my trips downtown to the historic center of Mexico City, I was passing Sanborns House of Tiles. (Sanborns is a chain of restaurants / gift shops, and the colonial mansion known as the House of Tiles is their flagship store.) In one of the windows there was a large display of dolls, and some of them were dressed in the regional outfits of Mexico. I went inside and purchased this one with the attire of the Huasteca region.
It's a charming doll, and I am sure that Amy's older daughter will love it. But there is something quite wrong with "Little Miss Huasteca". Look at its white skin, light brown hair and blue eyes.
Of course not every Mexican has brown skin, dark eyes and dark hair. But if you were to go to the indigenous villages of the Huasteca, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who looks like this little doll. Although some Mexicans would tell you that racism does not exist in Mexico...after all, the majority of Mexicans are "mestizos" of mixed ancestry... the fact is that the lighter your skin, the better off you are. If you go into an affluent Mexico City neighborhood, the residents are quite likely to be white, but their servants are brown-skinned. Look at the models in magazine advertisements, the actors on the TV soap operas, the music videos of the top pop stars... generally they do not represent the complexion of the real Mexico. And it even extends to the dolls at Sanborns!
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