Main Spotlight: A New American Girl for a Great American Main Street

The town of Metuchen, New Jersey is a great example of the American Main Street. From vibrant public art and an enticing restaurant scene to a wealth of opportunity and local engagement, this commuter town represents the kind of community that many hope to live in (which is why we recently named them as one of the 2023 Great American Main Street Award winners). We can all see ourselves in a town like Metuchen.

Another organization that strives to capture the zeitgeist of the American experience is the American Girl company. Founded in 1986 by Pleasant T. Rowland, the company seeks to inspire young women by sharing the stories of fictionalized girls across history and the present. “Through powerful stories of courageous heroines, we’ve helped shape an entire generation of women of character,” says their website.

Each year, they release a limited-edition “Girl of the Year,” a modern-day character meant to represent a relevant contemporary story or social issue. In many ways, the Girl of the Year is an attempt to represent what is means to be a quintessential ‘American Girl.’ So, it is fitting that the 2023 Girl of the Year hails from the Great American Main Street town of Metuchen.

Metuchen Meets Kavi

Kavi Sharma is a fictional eleven-year-old Indian American girl who dreams of fame performing on Broadway. She participates in traditional Indian dance, choregraphing a Bollywood routine for a school show, as well as songwriting and singing. She is the first main Girl of the Year character to be of South Asian descent, and her character extends beyond stereotypes, representing the unique combination of influences that coalescence in the lives of first- and second-generation immigrant children.

Metuchen has a large Indian American population, and they were delighted to celebrate that heritage after the announcement of their new Girl of the Year. “Our borough is a diverse, vibrant community with residents and programming that reflect the world around us,” Metuchen Mayor Jonathan Busch saidin a statement. Indian American culture was the centerpiece of Metuchen Downtown Alliance’s New Years Eve party last December, with Kavi playing a starring role. The event included music, Bollywood dancing, dhol drummers, and more. 

Who is an American Girl?

It is easy to dismiss the Girl of the Year as merely a toy. And of course, she is. But for many Americans, the Girl of the Year, and the wider American Girl franchise, represent much more. Generations of American girls, me included, remember excitedly receiving the company’s mail-order catalogs filled with glossy images of dolls and dresses and the imaginative stories that accompanied each character. I never owned an American Girl doll, but my perception of Americana and early 20th-century girlhood was nevertheless indelibly influenced by them.

Researchers interviewing adult women who played with the dolls in childhood found that representation in the product line had a significant impact on their identifies. As children, they looked for themselves in the catalogs and were disappointed when they did not find a doll that represented them. “Since there were no Asian dolls, [the] girl with the brown hair was as close as I could get,” said one participant. “It would have been nice to feel like my heritage had a place in American history.” Another participant identified this feeling as well: “They made me feel in the smallest way that I didn’t fit in with the American Girls.”

In this context, Kavi’s introduction takes on a new meaning. By expanding the representation within the American Girl universe to include an Indian American preteen, they are saying that Indian American girls are also simply American Girls.

Kavi may be fictional, but the town of Metuchen, New Jersey, is very real, and it is full of young Indian American girls with a myriad of experiences, dreams, and stories. By celebrating the announcement of the doll and gathering to witness the rich Indian American culture in the community, Metuchen Downtown Alliance has reminded us that we are all American Girls.

SnowShoe, a Main Street America Allied Member, is this quarter's Main Spotlight advertiser. For more information about what they do to support Main Street organizations, click here >