Released by Mattel in 2005, American Girl doll Marisol Luna quickly provoked controversy. The doll's accompanying narrative depicts her Chicago neighborhood of Pilsen as "dangerous" and recounts her family's move to the suburbs. Pilsen, located just south and west of downtown Chicago, has a long history as a Mexican (im)migrant port of entry. Many Latinos, particularly in Pilsen, perceive the doll and her narrative as a misrepresentation of their community that obscures the economic reality of gentrification and the displacement of poor residents of color. The resulting protest against the doll both exemplifies the contested nature of ownership of space and serves as a lens through which to examine the potential benefits and limitations of "latinidad," or unity among Latinos, in Chicago and elsewhere. Marisol Luna functions as a cultural text on which Latinos, as individuals and as a group, can articulate contestatory ethnic identities and negotiate their place and relationship with each other and with the city at large.