Emma's Junior Year Blog

BMC Toys will be soon coming out with little green army women. Brigit Katz’s article, “‘Little green army men’ will soon feature female toy soldiers,” explains how a 6-year-old girl named Vivian Lord recently wrote a letter to BMC Toys asking why there weren’t little army figurines in the shape of women. In 2018, JoAnn Ortloff, a retired fleet master chief, also wrote a letter to BMC requesting that army women be featured. Ortloff wanted her granddaughter to see that girls could also be in the army, not just boys. Vivian, on the other hand, knew that women could be in the army; she just didn’t understand why there were no figurines representing those women ( CLICK HERE to read the rest of Katz’s article). Jeff Imel, the owner of BMC Toys, explains that the main reason he has put off adding army women to the collection is the cost of producing new figures and new poses. Clearly, Imel decided the price is worth it, as he said, "Every kid wants to be the hero of their story...

My father came to America from France on an exchange program through his university when he was 22. Thirty years earlier, my mother’s mother had come to America from France on a boat when she was 20. She was born during World War II, when the Germans occupied France. One family story that has been told several times is the story of how, when my grandmother was a baby, there was a shortage of food. On Sundays, her parents would have to push her in a baby carriage for four miles outside of town to get vegetables from friends. Because the food was rationed in town, they would hide the vegetables underneath the blankets, which were under the baby. On their way back in town, German soldiers would stop them and look at the baby, but they never knew vegetables were hidden at the bottom of the carriage. Hearing this story several times reminded my siblings and I of our French heritage and taught us about French history. It gave us a deeper connection to France, and an even deeper appreciation...