Hispanics Criticize American Girl Doll
　　CHICAGO - Some residents of Chicago's largely Hispanic Pilsen section are upset over a new doll in the popular American Girl series because her storyline says the Mexican-American youngster and her family left the "dangerous" neighborhood for a better life in the suburbs.

　　Many in the West Side neighborhood say the characterization is insulting and inaccurate.

　　"It's very offensive and it's really a slap in the face to the hardworking people of the Pilsen community," said Alvaro R. Obregon, who lives near where the doll, Marisol, supposedly lived before setting out for suburban Des Plaines.

　　According to the biography that accompanies the doll, which was introduced just after Christmas, she is the daughter of a transit worker and an accountant. One day her mother tells Marisol the family is leaving their apartment for a house in the suburbs.

　　The old neighborhood "was no place for me to grow up," the doll's story says. "It was dangerous, and there was no place for me to play."

　　American Girl officials said that they never intended to insult the community.

　　"Our feeling is that when people read the book in its entirety, I think they'll see the picture that we painted of Marisol in the book is from a very warm, lively and very close-knit community," American Girl spokeswoman Stephanie Spanos said Wednesday.