In 2018, Cara Romero had a vision: reimaging Indigenous women in picture-perfect scenes, framed by a set that resembles a doll box. It was her way of presenting the women she admired in a way that would resonate with her doll-loving daughter.
“The inspiration for the First American Girl series was a lifetime of seeing Native American people represented in a dehumanized way,” Romero told The Museum of Modern Art.
“My daughter was born in 2006, and I really wanted her self-image to be different. But all of the dolls that depict Native American girls were inaccurate. They lacked the detail. They lacked the love. They lacked the historical accuracy.”
So Romero started the photography series with “Wakeah.”
Posed in a doll box, Wakeah Jhane Myers of the Kiowa and Comanche tribes stands tall in a Southern Buckskin dress, surrounded by traditional and contemporary pieces of regalia.
Every year, Romero’s series grows, encapsulating the identities and lived experiences of different Indigenous people each time, like “Naomi” of the YTT Northern Chumash Tribe and “Amber Morningstar” of the Choctaw Tribe.
Romero said that they helped her slowly dismantle the stereotypes she was fed as a young girl — while positively influencing her own daughter.
“I come from a community where women are allowed to have a voice, allowed to be really strong,” she told The 19th. “So [I was] wanting to pass down good self-esteem and a strong sense of self and identity. That’s what we aim to do as moms.”
A version of this article originally appeared in the 2026 Feminist Edition of the Goodnewspaper.
