Diverse TV and games

I never read The Baby-Sitters Club books as a girl. I think I was the wrong age for them, or I thought that the protagonists were all white (in that age when fiction typically just had a blonde, a redhead, and brunette for variety, or used Italians for ethnicity). I was never aware of Claudia Kishi being Japanese American or that she broke Asian stereotypes by being fashionable, artsy, and bad at school. The closest character I ever saw to Claudia was Lisa Turtle on Saved by the Bell, but Lisa was black.

I watched the Netflix show out of curiosity and was appropriately awed by Claudia Kishi's style and coolness. I even watched the Claudia Kishi documentary afterward to see all the other Asian Americans who grew up with her as a role model while I was missing out. She is indeed awesome, and the show overall is great too, updated with more girls of color and modern issues, like standing up for trans rights. I was also touched by the story of Claudia's grandmother Mimi having a stroke, then remembering her internment in Manzanar.

Another area that I've found unexpected diversity is in a video/casual game called June's Journey. It's a hidden object game where you earn points, stars, etc. in order to decorate an island. The protagonist June Parker is white and wealthy, but then you suddenly notice that the Talbots, the housekeeper and the groundskeeper, are an interracial couple. This story is set in circa 1927 in New York. But just when you think that maybe the only black character will be that servant Mr. Talbot, you see several black characters as Roaring Twenties partygoers in Havana, Cuba. Then we meet June's "best friend," a black artist named Amelia who is living in Paris (probably due to less racism in France than in America at the time). They were friends during the war, along with Jack, a roguish pilot that June used to date. I haven't gotten that far into the game so I don't know all the backstories yet. I believe there are hundreds of levels and more added regularly. But I do hope the story continues globe trotting and meeting more diverse characters. I'm just sad that I haven't seen anybody Asian yet. The world is a little like the optimistic, feminist Frankie Drake Mysteries from Canada.

Overall June's Journey is a fun game, and if you're patient, you don't need to spend actual money to keep playing. My only real objection is the historical inaccuracy about the FBI agent. In the 1920s the Bureau would be named the Bureau of Investigation or Department of Investigation, I think. The name only changed to FBI in the 1930s. But I guess I can see why the game writers settled for FBI since that's the modern name of the agency.