Of race and dolls

For those of you worried about the goats...I entered into a settlement agreement with the evictee. He has three weeks to vacate and take his goats with him. I am relieved about this.

Here is my question for the day:

When purchasing dolls for Lana, how careful should I be to purchase dolls that are Asian in appearance?

I have so far purchased two dolls for her - both appear to be Asian. One is clearly Asian, as her name is "Sonya Lee" and there are adorable Asian girls playing with her all over the box. (But, I worry that it is culturally insenstive of me to purchase a Chinese doll for a Vietnamese child. GEE! GAH!! My head might explode with this....)

The other doll has light skin and dark black hair and brownish-black eyes. I suppose if pressed one might think she was Italian or Spanish, but, she looks Asian to me. Her name is Cerise (which means Cherry in French). Here is a picture of her: (isn't she adorable??)

http://www.corolledolls.com/corolle_catalog/product_detail.php/pid=1105~subid=140/index.html

Anyway, I've been thinking some about toys for Lana, and my aunt suggested getting some "Kelly and Friends" dolls to take to Vietnam with us, because they are small and easily packable. (Kelly being Barbie's little sister, of course.) My aunt thought that she had seen an Asian Kelly and friends doll.

So, today I went looking (on-line, at lunch time) for some Kelly and Friends dolls, and I found THIS collection:

http://www.amazon.com/Barbie-Kelly-Ballet-Bunch-Dolls/dp/B000BCEJIG/sr=1-4/qid=1161893963/ref=sr_1_4/002-3530512-1780803?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games

It's five dolls. The picture is not very close up, but, it appears to me that there is an Asian doll, a black doll, a Hispanic doll, a red-head, and a blonde.

It looks like quite a diverse little ballet class. And small enough to pack in Lana's suitcase. AND LOOK HOW THEY ARE ALL DRESSED UP FOR BALLET CLASS? TOO CUTE FOR WORDS. And yet are too young looking to be physically distorted by the same folks who make Barbie, right?

Bottom line - can I feel good about purchasing this product? Certainly, I am not going to find a collection of 5 Asian baby ballerinas. (Not in the US, anyway?) And Lana is coming to a neighborhood populated by our neighbors who are white, black, Hispanic, Indian (as in from India), a mixed race couple, and I am pretty sure that the woman three doors down is Cherokee or Sioux. But I'm not 100% certain about that.

The point is, Lana will be moving into a diverse neighborhood, which I understand will be a shock to her. Should I endeavor to ensure that her playings are diverse as well? Or should I purchase only Asian dolls? (Which is a tall order in this neck of the woods, where white, black and Hispanic dolls are plentiful, but, Asian dolls are few and far between.)

I ask myself what I would have done, had Gabe been a girl. What would Veronica's (Veronica being the name that Gabe would have had, had Gabe been a girl) doll collection look like?

I want to believe that Veronica would have owned dolls of many different colors. Although I don't know that I can honestly answer that question about a daughter I didn't have...

Food for thought. Moms of other transracially adopted girls, what did YOU do? (WWMOTAGD? What would moms of transracially adopted girls do?) :-)

LM