American Girl's Commitment to Racial Equality, Six Years Later - And What It Means for The Brand Today

In 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Americans everywhere took to the streets to demand justice for the Black community in the wake of several murders of Black people at the hands of the police, most notably the murder of George Floyd. This led to many corporations making promises to the Black community and communities of color that they'd do better for them. In American Girl's case, this meant more representation in dolls, stories and products.

In 2020, there were only 2 African American historical characters being sold, Addy from the Civil War, and Melody from the Civil Rights Movement. There was no African American contemporary characters being sold, and only one in the brand's history, Gabriela, who's creation was marred in controversy as a rushed production made because CBS News called the brand out for never having a Black Girl of the Year. It was clear that American Girl had a ways to go in terms of representing the Black community, and they made a commitment to more diverse characters of all types. But instead of this being a company-wide commitment, it seemed like it was only a fleeting moment in time.

Fast forward to 2026, six years later. The Smart Girl's Guide book that was written in response to these events, Race and Inclusion, is on the clearance page. The diverse modern doll line that was created as a response, World By Us, is completely gone. The only doll from this push still available, Claudie Wells, has been mostly ignored by American Girl since her debut, with said debut in 2022 being shafted by the release of over twenty new Truly Me dolls weeks later. And as American Girl has had more of its focus on releasing dolls based on preexisting IP instead of their own original stories, this means that there's less room for improvement in the character department.

That isn't to say American Girl has completely abandoned its focus on ethnic diversity. In terms of original characters, half of the Girls of the Year released since American Girl's commitment to racial equality released have been dolls of color - Corinne, Kavi and Raquel. That's a positive trend compared to this point in the 2010s, where only 28% of Girls of the Year had any nonwhite heritage. However, if you compare historical releases to this point in the 2010s, there is a negative trend. Even if you keep in mind that there has been less new historical characters released in the 2020s than there were at this point in the 2010s, from 2010 to 2016, there were 2 new historical characters of color out of 5. In the 2020s so far? 1 out of 4.

You could make an argument that this doesn't have to do with a lack of representation on American Girl's part. It just means they have shifted more focus onto the modern characters and IP dolls. So let's look at that data for the IP dolls. When I looked at the data, the numbers actually showed that more IP dolls have been representing characters of color than white characters, with 56% of the IP dolls representing characters of color - the Barbie Peaches and Cream, Wednesday, Elphaba (who is portrayed in the Wicked movies by Black British actress Cynthia Erivo), Moana, Jasmine, Tiana, Rumi, Mira and Zoey. Even when you take the KPop Demon Hunters dolls out of the equation, that only takes the number down to 46%.

So why does it seem like there's less representation of girls of color in the American Girl world despite AG's commitment to diversity, when there is more dolls of color being produced than ever? I think it has to do with the fact that the IP dolls, which have been AG's main focus as of late, simply don't tell the stories of what it means to be an American Girl. They're all from fantastical worlds, which is cool and all, but you can get that from Barbie or other doll brands. When the vast majority of dolls being produced by the company that's supposed to tell stories about the real-life struggles and victories of being a girl, both in the past and the present, are just repackaging fantastical stories that have been told before, it's a blow to girls everywhere, but especially the most marginalized who need as many stories told about them as ever.

On paper, American Girl has fulfilled its' commitment to diversity. There are more dolls of color than ever to buy! They did release a book about race and inclusion! They did make a whole separate doll line!

But when you go deeper, and realize that the vast majority of the representation is just repackaging other stories, and that original characters of color have been shafted more often than not, and realize that American Girl has just been telling less story overall instead of telling stories that could take more effort to tell? Maybe they haven't fulfilled it after all.