Barbie tends to be one of the more controversial toys because of her “disproportionate” body, but this past week Barbie was in the news for possibly being racist or culturally insensitive. [Mexico Barbie](http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/04/12/177027203/toy-or-trouble-mexico-barbie-has-passport-chihuahua), part of a “Dolls of the World” line, comes complete in a traditional Mexican dress, wavy long hair, a Chihuahua and a passport.
Obviously, the doll is relying on an antiquated, one-dimensional view of Mexico to represent the country in the line of dolls. The rest of the collection relies on similar traditional dress as well. Critics have called for contemporary and inclusive reflections of the cultures represented, and I agree.
Most importantly, the doll and its stereotypes are marketed toward children whose first impressions of other cultures may be these simplified presentations. It’s really not unlike the lessons I remember being taught in grade school about diversity. We had posters with children dressed up in traditional clothing, and talked about traditional foods. I have a friend in the School of Education who says the lessons they learn to teach about culture are more or less the same. They spend more time talking about “social justice” than they do talking about culture or race.
In my theory class we are reading a piece, “Contaminated Communities” by J. David Cisneros, about media representations of immigration as a destructive, pollutant force. The author juxtaposes a discussion of images from a town affected by harmful pollutants with a discussion of undocumented immigration. He argues immigration is treated as a destructive, unstoppable force plaguing our communities, reinforced by images of American civilians trying to “defend” the border while the government ignores the problem. Rather than looking at immigrants as people, they are viewed as “others” who are diseased criminals looking to take away the piece of American society.
News media tend to reinforce the stereotype of undocumented immigrants by filming instances of people sitting on the desert ground in handcuffs or coming out of the hills.
Similar to the cultural racialization of Muslim to mean Arab, we’ve racialized immigration to refer to Mexican, Latino or Hispanic immigrants only. If you Google “immigration,” you’ll get news on immigrant groups pushing for reform, and likely more stories about what politicians are doing to keep “them” out. Rarely do you see information about who is immigrating, why they’re immigrating, or any emphasis on their humanity. Unfortunately, I feel like what I hear is more along the lines of “They ruined their country, and now they’re coming to ruin ours.”
So what does this have to do with Barbie?
As a whole, Americans have always had some issues with race and ethnicity. Despite being a nation of immigrants, and one that reveres its founders as brave heroes willing to leave their homes where things were not going so well and start a new life, America is very afraid of new immigrants. So people are caught between these simplistic Barbie representations of Mexico where everyone has a Chihuahua and wears a pink dress, and the criminals that politicians and news media portray. In all actuality, the general public [knows very little](http://www.rrstar.com/blogs/kevinhaas/x887149416/Rockford-is-notorious-for-its-Taco-Bell-love) about immigration and other cultures. Rather than recent immigrants being resource-draining criminals, [statistics tend to show the opposite](http://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/immigration-myths-and-facts).
Ultimately, media have an obligation to portray people and issues as realistically as possible, rather than relying on easy stereotypes. Rather than filming from the side of the fear-mongering border vigilantes, perhaps news media should explore the side of the immigrants more thoroughly to start changing the representations the public is saturated with. Rather than teaching children that countries have different traditional dress and food, maybe schools could expand into [teaching different ways of communicating](http://geert-hofstede.com) and the functional reasons behind the cultural practices that make them more relatable. Misleading representations may exist, but they don’t have to.
Maybe “Mexico Barbie” can come with a change of clothes and a pamphlet explaining that women in Mexico aren’t so different from women in America, and that none of them actually look like Barbie.
####Addendum: On Boston
Right after I finished this column, the reports of the Boston Marathon bombings started flooding my social media feeds. I called my friend who goes to Boston University (she was out at the marathon when her friend texted her about the explosions), and then started following the influx of on-the-scene reports.
At about 5 p.m., the New York Post reported the bombing suspect is a young Saudi man, and it’s fairly safe to say they made some egregious leaps and errors in reporting a suspect and his nationality, as the Boston police department said they did not yet have a suspect in custody.
However, this didn’t stop a wide range of speculation, fear and accusations from news sources and civilians alike. When I searched “Saudi” on Twitter, I got a lot of “Of course it’s a Saudi man. How long are we going to let _these_ people attack our country?” Thankfully, there were plenty of fact-checking, socially aware people on Twitter as well, reminding their followers that snap judgments or speculations help no one and actually harm many.
The midst of tragedy is probably the most difficult time to keep fear and uncertainty from letting you rely on stereotypes to find someone to blame. However, it’s in everyone’s best interest to do so. Rather, let the authorities do their job to find out who was responsible, donate blood and other resources if you can, and be thankful for family and friends.
