Mattel Made A Barbie Honoring Laurie Hernandez and This Is Amazing
We’ve come a really long way from the days when Barbie Dolls were like 99 percent white and the only other options you had were her black friend and her Latina doll friend Theresa—who were practically limited edition dolls
Photo: Instagram/@barbie
We’ve come a really long way from the days when Barbie Dolls were like 99 percent white and the only other options you had were her black friend and her Latina doll friend Theresa—who were practically limited edition dolls. That’s how hard it was to find them. These days you can find everything from black dolls with natural hair, to curvy dolls, even the controversial Frida Kahlo doll. And it looks like Mattel is really taking Latinas into consideration because they just came out with a Barbie modeled after Olympian Laurie Hernandez. How awesome is that?
I was out of my mind excited when I learned that Mattel had decided to create a doll honoring the 18-year-old, Puerto Rican Olympian. The brand clearly understands the importance of representation and creating dolls that honor women of color who are important figures in our community. This would be Mattel’s third Latina Barbie Shero doll. They’ve already had dolls honoring Frida Kahlo and Mexican professional golfer, Lorena Ochoa.
This doll is adorable and what’s even cooler is that Hernandez worked with Mattel to create a more flexible doll, so that girls can play with the doll and enjoy it having a full range of motion—like a real gymnast!
“Now girls are gonna be able to to find a doll and look at her and realize she has curls like them too, and if they want to try gymnastics, they can,” she said. “So I think that Barbie’s doing something incredible here.”
We couldn’t agree more!
