In my childhood, I had neither teddy bear nor blanky; I didn't play with slinkys, legos or easy bake ovens. I used to go outside terrorizing ants and collecting peculiarly long blades of uncut grass, twigs and acorn. I used to gang up against my sister with my brother (sorry Mariko), play cards, and stay over at friends' houses. I did, however, have an American Girl doll, oh yes, and so did my sister: she had Molly, and I, Samantha. I vaguely remember asking for the doll, and perhaps some accessories to complete Samantha's world of historic relics and keepsakes. She was plastic, and heavy; her joints were stiff, and her frame was hard. After treating her as if she were my most precious possession, I grew weary of her novelty after six months and she became an objet d'art, if I may, in the corner of my room...under my bed...in my closet...and now, probably buried in a dump under years of litter and waste, i.e. my basement. They came out with a new historical American Girl doll, the Jewish American Girl doll, Rebecca, who is Russian in origin, and living in the tenement houses of the lower east side in Manhattan. Well, lemme jus say, no more of any kind of warped classification or photocopy parallel universe doll for me...! I am going to hold my breath until they make me an Asian American Girl doll, the daughter of a worker on the transcontinental railroad, or perhaps a girl from a working family in Anychinatown, USA! Is there a lack in sociohistorical support to validate the production of an Asian American Girl doll? Because, honestly, I am American, my mother's American, my mother's father was an American, and that should be enough.
p.s. The Samantha doll is being archived which means if I had kept that doll I could have given it to my daughter who could have gotten it appraised for a 'nice price'. oh the humanity.
