When I was little, I was obsessed with Disney Princesses. I had Disney Princess everything: movies, dolls, room décor, kitchenware, games, clothing… pretty much anything you could imagine. I also loved Barbie dolls and Polly Pockets, including their branded movies and games. (I mean, if you didn’t play games on Barbie.com, were you even a 2000s kid?)

I looked up to these fictional characters so much as a little girl, however, looking back, there was a major problem with this: I didn't have any role models who looked like me.

I’m biracial. I’m half Filipino and half white. Needless to say, I have relatively tan skin, big brown eyes and dark hair. Looking back on my childhood now, as a woman in her 20s, it’s easy to see where many of the insecurities I developed growing up originate from.

Sure, there were Jasmine, Pocahontas and Mulan, but they were never spotlighted in the way those other princesses were; and not just any princesses— white ones.

Because of this, I never felt comfortable in my own skin as a little kid. Why? I had no popular fictional characters to validate my unique look. At times, I felt ashamed of my heritage. At times, I avoided spending too much time in the sun so that my skin wouldn’t get too tan. At times, I felt sad about the way I looked and couldn’t wrap my head around why Jasmine, Mulan and Pocahontas were never the centers of attention in the Disney Princess world. And need I remind you that this was all before Tiana even came around— Disney's first ever black princess, who made her debut in 2009... a little late, right?

When I say "center of attention," I also mean literally the center of attention in visual media… Looking back on the OG Disney Princesses from my childhood, it’s hard NOT to notice how the princesses of minority races are constantly placed in the shadows of white women. Does it bother anyone else that Cinderella is literally positioned with her back turned away from Pocahontas and, instead, turned towards Aurora?

Coincidence? I have no idea, but I can tell you that as a little girl, seeing images like this only reinforced my perception that the ideal standard of beauty is epitomized in fair skin and blonde hair. Because of that, I never felt it was appropriate to idolize a minority princess. To me as a child, they weren’t good enough.

And if they weren’t good enough, I wasn’t good enough.

Thankfully, we’ve been seeing a gradual shift towards a more inclusive attitude within the toy and children’s entertainment industries in recent years. We still have a lot of work to do, but we're making progress. I can’t tell you how happy it has made me to see the emergence of Princesses like Tiana, Moana, Elena and more. Having a baby sister who is ten years younger than me, you can imagine the joy I feel when I see her singing songs from Moana. More importantly, you can imagine how comforted I feel seeing her feel proud of a popular character like Moana— someone who she can actually see herselfin.

My misguided idea of beauty from childhood has dissolved over time, but sometimes I still struggle with the unrealistic standards of beauty our culture still holds— who doesn’t? Despite the many social stigmas we still have yet to break down, I’ve slowly learned to realize that I am good enough, exactly as I am. That is something that I hope to continue to witness within the content that children are exposed to, and something I plan to help change myself as an up-and-coming media professional.