This year, America has recognized Hispanic Heritage Month, celebrated from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, by creating new cultural toys.

Mattel Inc., an American company known for creating kids’ toys and games, consists of many sub-brands of children’s toys, one of the most popular ones being Barbie dolls. 

They celebrated the Hispanic community in an effort to be inclusive with their dolls.

To start off Hispanic Heritage Month, Barbie released a Celia Cruz doll. Known as the “Queen of Salsa,” Celia Cruz was one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century. The second doll was Dominican-American poet and novelist Julia Alvarez. 

The dolls are an addition to the Barbie Role Model collection, which aims to inspire young girls with successful women. 

The release of these dolls impacted many girls and members of the Latino community. However, this action received some backlash from the community as well.

“It seems like Barbie is another example of a company who is trying to show that they are being inclusive, but they’re not,” USC student Clara Preve Durrieu said in an article by USC Annenberg Media.

The reason for this being the dolls themselves are actually not for sale. Members of the Hispanic community are disappointed that the target audience of the toy is not able to purchase it.

“A lot of companies take on months for groups such as Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Pride Month and they commercialize it and they just use it to get more of an audience,” senior Isabela Santos said.

Many feel that the Hispanic community’s contributions should be recognized all year long, instead of the spotlight for a single month.

“It’s a lifelong movement until there’s change, and right now there is only a month and people kind of forget about us when it’s over,” Santos said.