For most American children (at least of past generations), Disney princess movies have been an integral part of their childhood. Since "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" was released back in 1937, there are a total of 11 official princesses currently in the Disney franchise. Most little girls (including me) loved to watch the movies, buy costumes to dress up as the princesses, and make our parents listen to the songs so many times with us they lost their minds.

As a Latina, I was so excited when I heard Disney was in the process of creating a Latina princess. It was going to be so great to have a princess I could relate to on a cultural level. I could call her 'mine', even if I'm 20, and I wish she'd been around when I was 5. Nevertheless, I enjoy Disney's princess movies even now, and I'm sure I'd be heading to the theaters to watch it soon after it was released.

Well there's the problem. I can't watch it in theaters.

Disney has two major flaws with this new princess: She doesn't have an ethnicity, and she doesn't even get a movie.

Princess Elena debuted as a "confident and compassionate" teenager dressed in a red gown, with brown skin, golden hoop earrings, and dark black hair on Disney Junior's "Sofia the First". First of all, Disney doesn't even state that Elena is Latina, but that her kingdom is simply "inspired by diverse Latin cultures and folklore". In addition to this, she has been given a very stereotypical appearance for someone who is simply defined by the term "Latina". As a lighter-skinned Puerto Rican, as well as many Latina's who come in all kinda of skin tones, and hair and eye color, this further shows the way in which Disney is trying to appeal to a large group of people. By failing to give her an ethnicity, Disney risks combining Cuban, Ecuadorian, Peruvian and Mexican culture and traditions for example, and this is an inaccurate representation of people of those cultures. This is what children who are both Latino and not Latino will experience as all Latino people to be like. Instead, there was a great idea from Latina Magazine, in which to create multiple Latina princesses. Respectfully represent these ethnicities just as Disney has done in the past, with multiple princesses based off of the German Grimm Brothers' stories for example.

Secondly, it was announced that "Elena of Avalor" will premiere on July 22, 2016 on Disney channel starring Dominican-American actress Aimee Carrero as her voice actress. While I'm happy to have Carrero, an actual Latina as her voice, it makes me sad that Elena won't have her own movie like every other major Disney princess has. It has also been proven that studio (movie) productions and TV studios have very different focuses on their productions. TV studios don't use much of their budget in the production of children's shows, such as on their animation and artwork, but rather on continuing to create many episodes, just to keep it airing. Disney is bringing the first Polynesian princess to theaters, "Moana", which I'm excited to see, but is that why Elena gets shafted as only a TV princess? In this way, Elena will really only be viewed by household with young children, rather than a national audience that would most likely spread internationally much like Disney's other princesses have.

Latinos make up 17 percent of the US population, and they've been waiting a long time for their own princess movie.