(Note: This is not meant to be me telling anyone how to raise their children. You can raise them and allow / not allow what you see fit. This is just my opinion on the matter.)
As I was scrolling through Facebook recently, I stumbled on to this article by Raising Race Conscious Children about how the author had a problem with her child wanting to dress up as Moana for Halloween.
She had a problem with her daughter being Moana because she was afraid of the idea that they'd be mocking Polynesian culture by dressing up as that culture. In the end, she convinced her daughter to give up on her Moana idea and dress as Mickey Mouse instead.
Though cultural sensitivity is important, I think children should be allowed to dress as their favorite characters, no matter the culture they represent.
Children don't understand things as complex and nuanced as cultural appropriation, white privilege, etc. They just want to be like the character they love.
For example, when I was four, I dressed up as Pocahontas for Halloween.
It makes me cringe to think about how if people saw a little white girl with pigtails in a Pocahontas costume in this day and age, the internet would have probably attacked me and accused me of making fun of Native American culture.
But in my four-year-old mind, I wasn't dressing up as Pocahontas to make fun of the Powhatan tribe. I was dressing up as a Disney princess I idolized.
I didn't know that Pocahontas was a real person nor how badly Disney altered her story. I barely even knew the English language at the time, let alone the historical/cultural significance of Pocahontas' real life story.
I just knew that to me and probably thousands of other girls like me, she was a symbol of strength, adventurousness, and love. (Also, "Colors of the Wind" is a fantastic song.)
I wanted to be her because of what she represented to me, not because of what she looked like.
Children dress up as characters out of respect and admiration for them. They don't see or understand all the cultural implications like adults do. And why force them to try to learn something so complex at such a young age?
Obviously, if I tried to dress up as Pocahontas now, as a 20-year-old, that would be offensive because I'm old enough to know that the movie version of Pocahontas doesn't necessarily reflect well on real-life Powhatan people.
Also, I'm old enough to know that a white person dressing up as a Native American and not knowing anything about their culture is offensive, especially considering the history between the two races.
But, toddlers and little kids don't know this. It is important to teach them this history, but maybe not so early in life, when they probably won't fully understand what any of it means.
Also, there certainly are culturally offensive costumes. If a kid dressed up as a "Mexican Man" and wore a mustache, sombrero, and poncho, that would be offensive and shouldn't be okay.
However, there's a huge difference between wearing an outright offensive costume like that and wearing the costume of a character they love but happens to be of a particular culture.
The first is making fun of a culture. The second is just showing admiration for a character.
Pre-teens, teens, and adults are old enough to understand that some costumes should be avoided in order to keep from possibly offending someone.
But, I don't think that we should hold toddlers and small children to that same standard. They just want to embody the traits that they admire so much in their favorite characters and become them for a night.
So if a little Hispanic girl wants to be Moana, let her! If a little white girl wants to be Pocahontas, let her! Let them show their love for the characters that impacted them so much.