Welcome to the Asian Pacific American Toy Chest

Well, as promised, here is the new and improved Asian Pacific American Toy Chest. I've been doing a lot of renovations as of late and have added a whole bunch of new stuff. Some of the new things that I've added are a top ten list of Asian Pacific American toys, news about upcoming APA toys and my APA toy dream list.

The big thing to check out is the Toy Chest Community section which contains new message boards, polls and instructions on how to subscribe to the APA Toy Chest e-mail annoucement list. I hope you will go and participate. I'd love to grow a community of APA Toyphiles!

Also, just added (as of February 11, 2001), is an ethnicity guide for toys. Now you will be able to browse a complete list of toys based on their ethnicity. I created this list after receiving a few e-mails from visitors who asked me if I knew the breakdown. So, I hope you enjoy looking through it and get a sense for what's out there.

So, please check it out and let me know what you think...

For those who have not been here, my name is Loren Javier, and this is my collection of toys that have some kind of connection to Asia or the Pacific Islands, whether that mean its an action figure of a character of Asian ancestry or a finger puppet from Asian mythology.

I was actually inspired to put this page together after finding Peter J. Chen's Asian-American Action Figure Homepage. First, I thought -- neat, there are other people out there who collect toys connected to Asia. I myself, had a little collection of Asian Pacific toys and after seeing the page, decided to increase my collection a bit. It's still growing. In fact, if you know where I can find some of the items of my wishlist, please drop me an e-mail.

I think it's important for Asian Pacific Americans to know that, while we're still pretty much invisible, that in-roads have been made. From television and film representations to Asian Pacifics in toys, we're starting to make our way into mainstream culture.

Okay, now people have asked me -- what makes a toy Asian Pacific American? This is a good question and I have a criteria that I've kept in my head, but will now share. This criteria will probably be greeted with either controversy or ambivalence. :-D

Whatever the case, here it is:

• The toy must represent a character or person of Asian descent. This means, I do not collect Asian influenced costumes or accessories. For example, you will not see something like the Mulan comb and mirror playset.
• However, toys representing characters of ambiguous ethnicity can embody something of Asian culture. That's why you'll see ninja legos or Asian inspired Star Wars aliens.
• Despite their Asian roots, Gundam, Pokémon/Digimon and giant monsters, such as Godzilla, do not qualify as Asian characters or people. Sorry Gundam Wing...but, your pilots qualify, if that's any consolation.
• The toy must be made for the American market and preferably mass marketed. This means, no imports that were made primarily for overseas consumption. This would explain why I don't have the multitudes of anime toys with Japanese language packaging.
• But, with the influx of anime on American culture, it would be impossible to ignore it. So, if based on an anime and made for an American market, the character then must retain its Japanese name. For example, Sailor Moon is known as Usagi Tsukino in Japan, but as Serena in the U.S. Also, the names of the human characters from Pokémon have changed to something more Anglicized. It's a pet peeve of mine as I wonder why people perpetuate the myth that "American" children can't relate to an Asian protagonist. However, as soon as I find toys of them, I'd probably include the characters from Cardcaptors, whose Asian names have been retained.
• The toy must be made to play with. So, no statues. Also, dolls cannot be made of porcelain, nor be an ultra valuable one-of-a-kind. So, you won't see Marie Osmond's dolls or the popular Dolls by Pauline.
• Along these lines, the toy must come pre-assembled (or, at least the majority of it) and pre-painted. No model kits are included. However, the Toy Chest does include Legos and similar toys as their playability depends on assembly.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the collection. Again, after visiting this page, I highly recommend you visit Peter Chen's Asian-American Action Figure Homepage.

Also, please note that this site is not a store. So, I am not selling items from my collection. If you are looking for particular items, I would suggest starting with an online auction. My favorite place to go is Auction Watch, because it monitors several different auction sites at once, such as eBay, Yahoo! Auctions, Amazon Auctions and so on.

Finally, please note that since I don't really have a digital cameras, pictures of my collection sometimes come out blurry. In those cases, I have used photos from other sources to show what the toy looks like. My site is a non-commercial site and only meant for informational purposes to those who might be toy collectors or interested in Asian Pacific Americans in toy form. If I've used your photo and would like me to remove it or credit a source, please let me know as I will gladly do it. You can e-mail me at loren@javier.com.