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Kaya is the newest creation of The Pleasant Company, founded by Pleasant T. Rowland in 1986 and best known for its series of period dolls, the American Girl. Ms. Rowland's enterprise has sold more than five million American Girl dolls, 56 million American Girl books. The dolls represent girls who lived in various epochs of American history; the books offer stories that flesh out their lives. The American Girls — there are now eight of them — are Felicity Merriman, Josephina Montoya, Kirsten Larson, Addy Walker, Samantha Parkington, Kit Kittredge, Molly McIntire, and Kaya. The dolls are expensive (Kaya and her hardcover book come to $90) and have some pricey accessories too, but they are clearly popular. The dolls, historically detailed clothes and accouterments, and the vividly imagined stories together offer real American girls a series of expertly imagined (but cloyingly P.C.) play worlds. The American Girls, of course, are not only from different times and places, but are ethnically diverse. Felicity is "a spunky, spritely girl growing up in Virginia in 1774," according to the American Girls Collection catalog. She is of English descent. Josephina is "a girl of heart and hope growing up in 1834 in New Mexico, a place of hard work, danger, and dreams." Kirsten is "a pioneer girl of strength and spirit growing up in Minnesota in 1854." She was born in Sweden and immigrated with her family. One of her friends is a Native American girl, Singing Bird. Addy is "a proud, courageous girl growing up in 1864." She lives in Philadelphia, having escaped from slavery with her mother. Samantha is "a bright Victorian girl living with her wealthy grandmother in 1904." She is an orphan and befriends Nellie, the servant girl next door. Kit is "a clever resourceful girl growing up in 1934, during America's Great Depression." And Molly is "a lively, lovable girl growing up in 1944." Her father is serving in the U.S. forces overseas. The American Girl biographers generally have not endowed these characters with anachronistic modern social attitudes. Felicity visits a tidewater plantation in one story, for example, and, somewhat to the irritation of one modern mom, fails to take notice of plantation slavery. That mom, Simone Zelitch, recently wrote a somewhat skeptical article on the American Girls Collection. (Click here.) Ms. Zelitch's stepdaughter owns Addie, Molly, and Kit dolls, and appears "ambivalent about their stories." She was slow to read the books, and the story of Addie the slave girl "gave her nightmares." Eventually, however, she came around and "now has most of the Molly series memorized." As Ms. Zelitch sees it, the American Girl collection makes some of the right moves, but doesn't go far enough. She approves of Addie's escape from slavery and her having to confront "Northern racism, freedmen's mutual aid societies, [and] class antagonisms." And she is pleased that Josephina in New Mexico of 1834 is not spared "the cultural and historical complexities of that time and place." But she would like to see yet another American Girl, "Rosa, a strong-willed and clever girl growing up in the tenements of New York." Rosa, in Ms. Zelich's mind's eye, loses her older sister in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company sweatshop fire, and is comforted by "the old family friend, Aunt Emma Goldman, who takes her to her first strike." But even without Aunt Emma, the American Girls dolls and books invite the child into a vision of American history that conforms to the political ideals of diversity. Most of the American Girls encounter hardship and perils calibrated to the historical experience of oppression by race, class, or marginalized social status. They form friendships with the even less fortunate, and they triumph. Their literary ancestors include Horatio Alger's rags-to-riches boy heroes. Kaya takes the series in a new direction. She is being marketed as "the first American Girl," and is conveniently situated in 1764, before Nez Perce contact with Europeans, but some thirty years after they had acquired horses. Thus, unlike the other American Girls who live in moments of ethnic oppression and social crisis, Kaya lives at apex of her culture's development. Lewis and Clark won't come trudging through Nez Perce territory until 40 years later, and Chief Joseph's heroic evasion of and eventual surrender ("I will fight no more forever.") to the U.S. Army lies more than a century away. Kaya and Speaking Rain do get captured by enemy raiders in Kaya's Escape, but the title sort of gives it away. Although Kaya, like the other American Girls, is assigned to a particular year, her moment has really been selected to evoke a timeless pre-history, free of the complications of actual American history. No Aunt Emma here. Kaya is more of a pure fantasy figure, a hunting-and-gathering American aboriginal who beats little boys at their own games and rides around on her spotted horse. But this is not to say that she lacks serious pedagogical purpose. As the Pleasant Company explains, Kaya "will increase your daughter's awareness of the compassion, tolerance, and respect for nature that lie at the heart of many native cultures — and offer her valuable inspiration and encouragement as she grows up in America today." Kaya will, however, spare your daughter the lessons on plantation agriculture, the hacienda system, immigration policy, slavery, class disparities, the Great Depression, and war that the other American Girls purvey. This difference is curious. The insistence on real-world social contexts helps give the other dolls the stamp of authenticity that appeals to moms like Simone Zelitch. The American Girls are designed, in effect, as toys for the daughters of BoBo parents, who are attracted as much by the America-isn't-perfect subtext as by the exquisite and often over-the-top craftsmanship. The Pleasant Company offers a near-perfect combination of implied social alienation and heirloom quality. The dolls offer the same kind of period-perfect accuracy as Restoration Hardware doorknobs or cocktail shakers. The Pleasant Company similarly lavishes attention on imitating minute features of its pretend worlds, down to the exact shade of green on the milkshake mixer and vinyl counter top in the $178 Lil's Diner in its 1950's kit. Josefina has her mantilla and fan, a cake of lavender soap, and a nugget of turquoise; Samantha has a doll pram and a watercress sandwich (in her Tea Tin Lunchbox, $20). Little Kaya wears what a Nez Perce maiden might wear: a deerskin dress adorned with elk teeth and rabbit-fur cape. She rests on her buffalo-hide mat and displays her porcupine-quill necklace. But if mom belongs to PETA, don't worry. No elk, rabbit, buffalo, or porcupines were sacrificed: "Animal products are simulated unless otherwise noted." In a market crowed with vacuous Barbies and gimmicky dolls of every multicultural type, the American Girls stand out as exceptionally well-conceived toys. Too bad that they are also helping to pass along a sense that American history is mainly a story of identity groups and consumerism. — Peter W. Wood is an associate professor of anthropology at Boston University. |
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is a new American girl on the market — literally. Her name is Kaya
(Ky-YAAH) and she is a Nez Perce, a member of one of the aboriginal peoples
of the northwest. She rides an Appaloosa mare named Steps High, keeps
a puppy named Tatlo, and plays with her sister, Speaking Rain, who is
blind. Between adventures, Kaya collects huckleberries and camas roots,
and keeps her deer-antler bracelet in her painted parfleche.
