Blonde-haired blue-eyed Barbie may still dominate, but Kmart is one of several retailers whose toy aisle is no longer completely lily white.
The retailer is launching its own
line of multicultural dolls in its 1,400 stores nationwide. While other retailers are stocking more multicultural dolls -- often in predominantly minority neighborhoods -- Kmart claims it's the first
mass-market retailer to have such a wide selection available in every store.
The success of Nickelodeon's popular bilingual children's character, Dora the Explorer, and the spending power
of the nation's growing minority population, has prompted toy retailers nationwide to add dolls whose skin colors and facial features reflect the girls and boys who play with them. Although black and
Hispanic dolls have been around for decades, the newer incarnations try harder at authenticity, rather than simply tinting the hair and skin from "white" doll molds.
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