On Sept.17, simply two days into Hispanic Heritage Month, American Lady launched the doll and character Raquel Reyes, the 2026 Lady of the 12 months. She is launched because the great-great-granddaughter of Samantha Parkington — my favourite American Lady historic character, and the primary heroine who taught me that compassion might change the world.
As an writer and an educator, I take into consideration the e book “Samantha Learns a Lesson” each time I open my classroom door to college students from each background possible and each time I sit down to put in writing with the duty of shaping conversations that talk to audiences throughout age, tradition and lived expertise.
I found Samantha by way of an opportunity encounter with the Nice Firm catalog in kindergarten. My dad and mom couldn’t afford the doll, so solely her books have been inside attain — at first by way of the Los Angeles Public Library, and later after I proudly owned the boxed set in fourth grade. My mother and I’d stroll or take the bus to the library, as a result of she didn’t personal a automotive. We didn’t personal a lot in any respect. However I did have my very own library card, and thru it, Samantha turned a part of my life.
Samantha Parkington, dropped at life by writer Susan S. Adler, was raised in privilege on the flip of the twentieth century. But her story resonated as a result of she cared deeply about equity. She stood up for her greatest good friend, Nellie, a servant woman, when it was thought-about improper for a lady of her class to take action. When Samantha was 10 years outdated, she even created the “Mount Higher College” within the tower of her home so Nellie might be taught, as a result of she believed she might supply one thing that Mount Bedford College couldn’t.
That spirit sparked one thing in me as I grew older. Like Samantha, I dreamed of making a faculty that might meet unmet wants. I envisioned center schoolers attending workshops led by group members — choreographers, carpenters, entrepreneurs, mechanics — the place college students might be taught trades and expertise along with teachers. I imagined partnering with native mom-and-pop eating places so cafeteria menus might embody each wholesome decisions and the varied flavors of the group. Samantha noticed potential the place others noticed limitations, and I carry that very same imaginative and prescient into my classroom and on the web page.
Now a brand new technology of Samantha’s household has a message for a brand new technology of readers. Raquel Reyes connects heritage and legacy in a approach no different American Lady character has. Written by Angela Cervantes, “Raquel Reyes’ Diary” explores her household’s Mexican American id. Her dad’s Mexican facet and her mother’s Anglo facet each form her, and her story reveals how household historical past ripples by way of generations. Even in small particulars — like Raquel’s ardour for paletas echoing Samantha’s love of peppermint ice cream — readers see that frequent floor throughout cultures and centuries is each attainable and plausible.
By means of Raquel’s diary, we even be taught that Samantha grew as much as turn into a instructor and opened a women’ college within the Twenties. That revelation felt like a full-circle second: Samantha’s compassion lived on in Raquel because it had in me. Within the e book, you see that this compassion turned a household trait, obvious in the way in which Raquel worries for her Pomeranian, Luzita, with the identical fierce devotion her cousin Harper reveals in defending sea life. Compassion isn’t summary of their tales; it’s lived, practiced and embodied within the small, every day decisions to take care of others.
Raquel’s arrival additionally reopens questions on illustration due to her resemblance to Maritza Ochoa, one other character written by Cervantes. Maritza, launched in 2021, is a soccer participant and observe star who turns into an immigrant activist. On the web page, Raquel and Maritza are distinct. On the shelf, they’re practically equivalent — each light-skinned Latinas with darkish hair and solely minor variations in eye shade. That is the place Mattel and American Lady LLC missed the mark. Latinas are available each shade possible. In my household alone, pores and skin tones vary from particularly reasonable to deep brown, with hair and eye colours simply as diverse. To launch Raquel wanting a lot like Maritza flattens that richness, leaving women who don’t match that slender picture as soon as once more trying to find themselves.
And Cervantes missed a distinct alternative in “Lead With Your Coronary heart,” the 2021 e book that launched Maritza. It briefly mentions Dreamers — youngsters dropped at the US who’ve grown up right here with out everlasting authorized protections — however shortly shifts to a household reunification plot. That alternative mirrors what has occurred in Congress, the place the unique Dream Act was launched in 2001 and has since been revised greater than 20 instances with out passing. Almost 25 years later, Dreamers are nonetheless in limbo, their futures unsure. Lots of them are American Lady readers and followers. To go away their story offstage is to repeat the very silence they already stay with.
American Lady has by no means shied away from daring tales. Samantha taught us that compassion could possibly be a pressure for justice. Raquel reveals the facility of heritage, legacy and claiming area as a Mexican American woman in a protracted American story. Maritza reminded us that activism can take root in one thing as easy — and as highly effective — as a soccer discipline. For all three, the center of the lesson is similar: women can lead, women can encourage, and women can change the world.
The subsequent American Lady tales are ready to be instructed by ladies who’ve been sidelined however reside the daring lives that different generations want to listen to about.
Carolina Coronado is a Latina educator and the writer of “Quinceañera: Una Nueva Etapa.”
