Check this out. Hispanic activists are mad at the makers of the American Girl dolls (my mom bought my daughter her first one, Samantha, for Christmas…a great improvement over Bratz dolls IMO).

So, what’s the latest protest about? The ethnic activists don’t like the story line that accompanies the Marisol doll because her family moves from a dangerous neighborhood of Chicago to a safer, more family-friendly suburb of Illinois.

Some residents of Chicago’s largely Hispanic Pilsen section are upset over a new doll in the popular American Girl series because her storyline says the Mexican-American youngster and her family left the “dangerous” neighborhood for a better life in the suburbs.

Many in the West Side neighborhood say the characterization is insulting and inaccurate.

“It’s very offensive and it’s really a slap in the face to the hardworking people of the Pilsen community,” said Alvaro R. Obregon, who lives near where the doll, Marisol, supposedly lived before setting out for suburban Des Plaines.

According to the biography that accompanies the doll, which was introduced just after Christmas, she is the daughter of a transit worker and an accountant. One day her mother tells Marisol the family is leaving their apartment for a house in the suburbs.

The old neighborhood “was no place for me to grow up,” the doll’s story says. “It was dangerous, and there was no place for me to play.”

Hispanic activists in Pilsen may take offense at the American doll plot line, but the crime statistics in their neighborhood speak for themselves. This is a demographic summary from the University of Illinois at Chicago:

Today, Pilsen is Chicago’s largest Latino community. According to Claritas, Inc, of a total 1998 population of 44,133, 93.5% are Latino, predominantly of Mexican heritage. The median age in Pilsen is 18 years the youngest for any Chicago community. More than a third (36%) of the community’s children live below the federal poverty level. Of the 12,340 households in Pilsen, approximately 22% are headed by women, and 31% have incomes of less than $15,000 per year. The 1989 median household income in Pilsen was $20,571, more than 20% lower than the citywide median of $26,301. Between 1979 and 1989, the median income in Pilsen declined 8%, compared to a 1% decline for the city.

In addition to poverty and related social problems, Pilsen residents must cope with high levels of violence. In 1992, the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority named Pilsen one of the “hot spots” in the city for street gang violence. Today, the level of gang-related violence in Pilsen is widely considered to be second only to East Los Angeles.

The critics of the Marisol doll want her to stay in her gang-infested neighborhood to preserve ethnic unity:

Alejandra L. Ibanez, executive director of the community group Pilsen Alliance, said American Girl missed an opportunity.

“I wish that they would not have had Marisol leave her community so that little girls like Marisol living in the inner city can be proud of their neighborhood and not have the perception that they must leave the neighborhood so that they can do better for themselves,” Ibanez said.

There’s a name for this stupid, selfish belief. It’s called Crab in the Bucket syndrome. Shame on the ethnic activists who would make immigrant families in the inner city feel ashamed for wanting to better their lives and ensure their children’s safety.

Other comments from around the blogosphere…

Cranial Cavity says: “Shut the hell up…it’s a doll!

PalmTreePundit notes that now Hispanic politicians are pounding on the Marisol doll

New (Sub)Urbanism analyzes the gentrification of the Pilsen neighborhood and the reversal of “white flight.”

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