American Girl recently made the decision to add the Kaya face mold to the Create Your Own doll line. This decision has been criticized by collectors and fans.
At first it appeared that the Kaya face mold would only be available paired with new short haired options. Similar to the design of Logan, the first American Boy doll, these options appeared to be meant to represent boys. (Short hair is nearly always a male gender signifier with American Girl dolls.)
I don't understand why American Girl chose to use the Kaya face mold for Logan, but it did. It was a harmful choice. Firstly, the Kaya face mold was created to represent a Nez Perce girl. What made her face more masculine than the face of another doll?
Additionally, intentionally or not, this choice played into harmful stereotypes of Native American women being less feminine than women of European descent. The Logan doll also had thick eyebrows similar to Kaya's. Delicate eyebrows are not inherently more or less feminine than thick eyebrows. They are simply a modern, Eurocentric beauty standard. (Among American Boy dolls, their gender is indicated with thicker eyebrows and a closed mouth, similar to Kaya's.)
Ironically, the limited option to pair the Kaya mold with short hair, placed limits on the creation of male Native American characters. For boys and men from many Native American nations, long hair is an expression of their heritage and sometimes their religion. To be forced to cut it is inherently colonizing, and reawakens generational trauma, especially that associated with Native American boarding schools.
Thankfully it appears that the hair options have been expanded to include choices for long hair. However, I wish that American Girl would keep in mind that choices like using Kaya's face mold for Logan are upsetting, harmful, and racist, and to make decisions more carefully in the future.