When I was a kid, I loved 

American Girl dolls. They were 
just expensive dolls, but they were 
also a defining innovation of my 
entire upbringing. The historical 
dolls scene was the best — don’t 
argue. Felicity was my favorite, 
but Nellie was pretty cool and 
Molly was all right. Don’t talk to 
me about Samantha though. My 
best friend and I would spend 
hours at her house poring through 
magazine pages, picking out the 
dolls we wanted and the outfits 
we would put them in. We read all 
the books together, and made up 
our own stories once we finished 
the books. I wanted, more than 
anything, to have an American Girl 
doll. And when my best friend got 
Kit Kittredge, I was so jealous.

But here’s the thing: part of the 

attraction of American Girl dolls 
is that the doll looks like you. All 
the girls in the magazines looked 
just like their dolls. There were 
always sections in the back where 
you could customize your own 
doll so it really fit — Truly You, or 
whatever it was called. You could 
even buy matching clothes and 
pajama sets, so you know it was 
real. But my friends and I would sit 
for ages, leafing through eye colors 
and hair colors and skin tones but 
we could never come up with a 
doll that looked quite like me. A 
chubby-faced, Chinese-American 
girl.

That really messed with my 

head for a while. Especially playing 
with my friend and Kit Kittredge, 
with their matching blonde bobs, 
I wondered why I couldn’t get 
a doll that looked like me. So I 
decided I would write a letter to 
the American Girl organization. 
I saved all my Christmas money, 
all my birthday money and all 
my Chinese New Year hong bao 
(red packets of Chinese New Year 
money) for this moment. I had 
$132.74 in cash and a mission. 
I wrote to the American Girl 
organization in Chicago — with my 
best handwriting, to make it clear I 
wasn’t fucking around — to ask if 
they could make a doll that looked 
like me. A doll with little almond 
eyes that her classmates sometimes 
made fun of, and straight black 
hair that stood out among a sea of 
brunette. I put all my money into 
the envelope, figured out how to 
address an envelope and sealed my 
letter in tight.

Unfortunately, my grand plan 

was thwarted by my mom, who 
thought putting a fat stack of cash 
into an envelope was not a good 
idea. And even though I wasn’t 
happy about it, I was willing to let 
it go. It was my mom, after all.

Fast-forward 
to 
2007, 
and 

American Girl released Ivy Ling. 
I was shook. Yeah, Ivy was a Best 
Friend and not a main doll and 
she was Taiwanese, not mainland 
Chinese, so I didn’t relate to 
everything about her. But she 
looked like me, ate the same kind 
of food at home and celebrated 
Chinese New Year, like me. And 
when I say I begged for that doll, 
I’m not playing. I swear I almost 
cried when she arrived in the mail, 
with her red qipao — traditional 
Chinese dress — and black bangs. 
Finally, I had an American Girl 
Doll that looked just like me. I felt 
like I belonged.

This is the story of so many 

Asian-American girls. I spent 
so much of my childhood, and 
still spend so much time today, 
searching for women who look 
like me in outlets of my life. It’s not 
something that I would spend a lot 
of time thinking about, but I think 
its effects were more pertinent than 
I recognize. Because whenever I 
see Asian-American women like 
Constance Wu, Amy Tan or Judy 
Chu, it makes me think that I could 
be them in the future. I can make 
as much change as they have made. 
I can be successful, I have a place 
in America. For all the backlash I 
have gotten for looking the way I 
do, seeing Asian-American women 
in the eye of the public makes me 
feel as though it doesn’t matter. If 
they could make it out and keep 
chasing their dreams, I can too.

Recently, I have also been 

spending an ungodly amount of 
time explaining to people why 
Asian-American 
representation 

matters. From Facebook friends, 
class discussions and our own 
university president, I hear that 
Asians are a smaller population 
anyway. It’s an economic and 
business choice to use white 
people. Asians are better off 
compared to other minorities, 
and I need to pick my battles. 
Some Asians don’t care, so why 
should I? And when I consider 
those perspectives, it makes sense. 
Stereotypically, 
Asians 
stack 

paper, keep their mouths shut and 
fulfill the image of immigrants 
that is marketed to the rest of the 
world. But why don’t people think 
Asian-Americans have problems? 
Because I know there is unspoken 
poverty in urban Chinatowns, 
there are ignored issues among 
the Hmong population in Detroit, 
and that Jiansheng Chen, Srinivas 
Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani 
were shot unarmed this month 
and no one really cared. However, 
I have realized that people are 
only aware of the Asian-American 
statistics publicized to the rest 
of the world. They do not see 
our issues because, to them, 
Asian issues don’t exist. All they 
see are the numbers of Asians 
getting university degrees, the 
nerdy Asian sidekicks on the big 
screens, the Asian fantasy girls 
in pornography, but that is not 
the reality of the Asian-American 
experience. Although Asians are 
part of the ethnic group that is 
most likely to receive a college 
education, there exists a serious 
lack of Asian-American leadership 
in industries across the board. 
That’s not even mentioning that 
many subcategories of Asian-
Americans receive below-average 
educations — we just don’t talk 
about it.

So Asian-Americans get degrees, 

but that doesn’t mean anything 
when they leave campus if they 
want to make change in a field. 
People still want white faces to lead 
their businesses and institutions. 
And while it is a huge privilege 
to be able to receive an education 
at the university level, Asians 
still have to combat the notorious 
bamboo ceiling when they finish 
college. It all stems back to how 
Asian-Americans are perceived in 
this country. Media is a huge outlet 
for many Americans, and that is 
why accurate and multifaceted 
representation matters so much. 
It’s why Karlie Kloss dressing 
as a geisha in Vogue’s diversity 
shoot was offensive, and why 
Scarlett Johansson in “Ghost in 

the Shell” was unacceptable. If 
you really needed a model for 
a 
diversity 
shoot 
celebrating 

Japanese culture, wouldn’t it be a 
great opportunity to help Japanese 
models break into the modeling 
industry? Isn’t it more economical 
to cast an Asian actress in “Ghost 
in the Shell,” rather than try digital 
alterations on Scarlett Johansson’s 
face to make her look more Asian? 
Hearing about things like this 
makes me, as an Asian girl, feel as 
though I’m not needed in society. 
That someone can just take a white 
woman, give her an angled bob and 
call it about the same. Preferable, 
even.

I have been taught, through 

instances like these, that white 
America 
doesn’t 
want 
actual 

Asians. They want Becky to 
squint a little, and that’s more 
palatable for society. They want 
me to mispronounce my Rs and 
say things that don’t make sense, 
because English can’t possibly be 
my mother tongue. They want 
me to stir-fry rice in the corner, 
and laugh along with their jokes 
that simply aren’t true. But you 
want to know a secret? It’s not 
“ching chong,” it’s Chongqing, 
and Chongqing is a major Chinese 
municipal city with over 30 million 
people. You don’t have yellow fever, 
Chad, you have a problem with 
hypersexualizing Asian women. 
And my eyes might be smaller than 
yours, but I still somehow see more 
than you, because you can’t even 
recognize the ignorance coming 
out of your own mouth.

When I tutored kindergarteners 

a few weeks ago, I walked into the 
classroom and noticed that, while 
the classroom was quite diverse, 
there was only one Asian girl in the 
room. She noticed it, too. When she 
saw me, her eyes grew so big, they 
looked like marbles. She ran up to 
me when activities started, still in 
disbelief.

“You 
look 
like 
me,” 
she 

whispered.

“I do,” I replied.
She stayed by my side for the 

whole time I helped out in class, 
playing phonics Go Fish with all 
the kindergarteners. And when 
my time was up, her little hand 
waved goodbye, watching me with 
those big marble eyes. All I could 
think about for the rest of the day 
was the look on her face when she 
first saw me. It reminded me of my 
own inexplicable obsession with 
Selena Gomez when I was younger. 
I couldn’t put a finger on it at the 
time, but I later realized it was 
because she looked vaguely like 
me. Representation matters. When 
I see another Asian woman doing 
important things in society, it gives 
me so much hope for myself. And 
this feeling is probably applicable 
to other groups of people. Diverse 
representation is a powerful tool 
that must be harnessed to truly 
attain an inclusive society. And 
people will question, degrade, 
dismiss and push my beliefs aside, 
but I will not stand down. This is 
important, and I will push until 
people understand.

Progress comes slowly, but I 

am willing to take slow progress 
if the alternative is none. Ivy Ling 
was discontinued in 2014, but in 
February, American Girl released 
not only a new Korean-American 
doll, but also a Pacific Islander doll. 
American Girl dolls might not be 
the hypest scene for kids anymore, 
but I hope those who still care can 
learn more about those cultures, 
or find a place for them within the 
context of American Girl Dolls. 
Because if you are here in America, 
you deserve to be visible.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
Thursday, March 16, 2017 — 3

American Girl Doll
LSA Dean Andrew Martin 
Promotes Ignorance of Asian/
Pacific Islander Americans

STEFFI CAO
MiC Contributor

If you are worried that the 

dissemination 
of 
“alternative 

facts” is undermining intelligent 
discourse and threatening our 
democracy, we advise you to 
pay closer to attention to LSA’s 
attempts 
to 
eliminate 
and 

distort the history of Asian/
Pacific Islander Americans at the 
University of Michigan.

On March 10, LSA Dean 

Andrew Martin sent an email 
for mass distribution in which 
he announced “the first-ever 
campus-wide 
convening 
of 

students, faculty, and staff for an 
afternoon of informal meet-and-
greet networking, information 
sharing, 
and 
structured 

conversations on issues of concern 
to Asian, Asian-American, and 
Pacific 
Islander 
communities 

across campus.” 

Apparently, 
Dean 
Martin 

has just discovered the A/
PIA 
community 
the 
same 

way 
Columbus 
“discovered” 

America. 
The 
flier 
Martin 

attached says the summit will 
discuss the “History of APIAs at 
U-M.” However, his misleading 
announcement suggests this will 
be a whitewashing of history.

As members of a network 

of A/PIA alumni and former 
student leaders, we are here to 
tell Martin that our community 
has convened dozens of campus-
wide gatherings of student, staff 
and faculty for more than four 
decades. 
Not 
coincidentally, 

overcoming LSA’s lack of support 
for A/PIA Studies and lack of 
awareness of A / PIA concerns 
has been a central impetus for 
these regular convenings.

To 
erase 
the 
history 
of 

A/PIA 
organizing 
at 
the 

University is to ignore the 
collective struggles we have 
fought against Eurocentrism, 
hate crimes and institutional 

racism, 
while 
fighting 
for 

ethnic 
studies, 
affirmative 

action and social justice. This 
erasure reinforces the model 
minority stereotype of Asians as 
passive and conservative, thus 
fostering divisions between the 
A/PIA community and other 
communities of color.

In 
recent 
years, 
A/PIA 

students, 
faculty 
and 
staff 

organized a series of campus-
wide summits, conferences and 
events in response to LSA’s failure 
to retain A/PIA Studies faculty, 
which reached a crisis point 
starting in 2011. Within an eight-
month period, the United Asian 
American Organizations, the A/
PIA Studies program and Multi-
Ethnic Student Affairs convened 
two summits, one strategy session, 
one 
community 
conversation 

and an Asian-American activism 
conference, where more than 
80 presenters addressed both 
campus and community issues.

Participants 
included 

prominent 
A/PIA 
scholars, 

artists, 
organizers 
and 
off-

campus leaders, including a U.S. 
congressman and a state senator. 
Two presenters have since been 
elected to the Michigan House of 
Representatives and Philadelphia 
City Council, respectively. These 
gatherings also addressed the lack 
of space for A/PIA and student of 
color organizations on campus, 
as well as the problem of a hostile 
campus climate.

To pretend that events of 

this magnitude never happened 
demonstrates 
either 
profound 

audacity or a supreme level of 
ignorance that should disqualify 
oneself 
from 
leadership 
in 

education. But why is LSA trying 
so hard to erase this history? We 
have some ideas.

First, when students don’t 

know how vibrant A/PIA Studies 
used to be, it is easier for LSA to 
pretend as if its new diversity plan 
is breaking new ground rather 
than peddling old rhetoric. Prior 
to the demise of the program, 

A/PIA Studies curriculum and 
faculty had a strong presence 
among 
student 
organizations 

and campus life, and frequently 
collaborated to put on events 
several times a semester. One of 
the annual events that has since 
dropped off was “HolidAPA”, 
an event held at the end of the 
fall semester to showcase A/
PIA Studies end-of-the-semester 
projects.

Second, 
setting 
low 

expectations makes it easier for 
LSA to defend its poor decision-
making 
regarding 
leadership 

choices for the A/PIA Studies 
program and Department of 
American Culture, which lost 20 
faculty of color from 1997 to 2016, 
including all four prior A/PIA 
Studies directors.

Third, Dean Martin and LSA 

are covering up their own roles in 
undermining faculty of color and 
ethnic studies. The University 
is currently the defendant in 
a landmark suit by two highly 
successful, 
award-winning 

faculty, who cite the University’s 
own documents to reveal how 
prior LSA deans and senior 
faculty opposed ethnic studies 
and favored white professors with 
thin resumes to lead American 
Culture.

If he wants to believe he is 

so committed to diversity and 
the A/PIA community, Dean 
Martin 
should 
retract 
these 

alternative facts and implement 
the five demands we presented 
in November 2016, and reinstate 
professors Kurashige and Lawsin 
immediately, giving them the 
resources needed to restore A/
PIA Studies at the University. If 
he will not do this, we challenge 
Martin 
— 
a 
quantitative 

researcher — to show us the data 
that on A/PIA Studies activity 
(e.g., student enrollment and 
involvement, fundraising, public 
events, 
local/national 
awards, 

media coverage) before and after 
Prof. Kurashige’s termination and 
explain the discrepancy.

INTERESTED IN 
WRITING FOR 

MIC?

Michigan in Color is 
a space by and for 
students of color. 
We accept all forms 
of submissions — 
personal narratives, 

poems, policy critiques, 

and more. If you are 
interested in joining 
or submitting a piece, 

please contact at 
michiganincolor@

umich.edu.

When you see me, do you only see my hijab?

ZANIB SAREINI

MiC Contributor

When you greet me, do you 

only see my hijab?

When I walk into

the classroom

the grocery store

the mall

the gym

the airport

Do you only see my hijab?

When I am

angry

sad

silent

happy

When I

fail

succeed

smile

cry
 

Do you only see my hijab?

When you ask me

“What foreign country are 

you from?”

“When were you forced to 

wear ‘that’?”

“When will you have an 

arranged marriage?”

When you

silence me

call me a terrorist

look at me with fear

yell at me to “go home”

pull your child away from 
my side of the sidewalk

are shocked that I can 

speak English

feel threatened by my mere 

presence

Do you only see my hijab?

Maybe the more important 

question here is:

What do you even see 
when you see my hijab?

Me?

or

Your 
false 
perceptions, 

implicit biases, unconscious 
hate, irrational fear, invalid 
disgust, 
and 
uninformed 

generalizations?

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 

A/PIA ALUMNI
MiC Contributors