Created by Maritere Rivera Mix, Teacher & Lifelong Maker

SEWcialstudies.org • madebymix.etsy.com
$20 Cut & Sew Doll Kit • $40 Handmade Doll

Hola! Hi! Salve! My name is Maritere, and I was born in Puerto Rico and raised in Chelsea, MA. I have been a Latin teacher since 2003, spending 12 years at Boston Public Schools, and the past 5 at Nashoba Brooks School.

My career as an educator is a large part of my identity, but I have always found time to paint, to draw, and to create through sewing. The work featured in my shop emerged from what I observed as a lack of diversity in educational toys — specifically toys highlighting the accomplishments of Black, Latin and Indigenous women. Young people should learn about the lives of these women all yearlong and from an early age.
My doll kits, either DIY or complete handmade fabric dolls, feature:

• Sojourner Truth, abolitionist and women’s rights activist (1797-1883)
• Kamala Harris, US Vice President (b.1964)
• Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court (b.1954) • Shirley Chisholm, first Black US Congresswoman (1924-2005)
• Frida Kahlo, Mexican painter (1907-1954)
• Maria Tallchief, first US Indigenous prima ballerina (1925-2013)
• Dolores Huerta, US labor activist & Chicano civil rights leader (b.1930)
• Septima Poinsette-Clark African American educator & civil rights leader (1898-1987)
• Celia Cruz, Cuban American singer called the ‘Queen of Salsa’ (1925-2003)
• Deb Haaland, one of the first Indigenous Congresswomen (1960)

Dolls can be purchased as a beginner’s sewing kit, easily sewn by machine or by hand, as well as finished handmade dolls. The back of each doll gives educational details about each real-life woman’s accomplishments.