Like most 10-year-old girls, Melissa Shang loves American Girl dolls and their accompanying backstories. But she doesn’t see herself in any of them. Shang has Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease, a form of muscular dystrophy that causes nerve damage and muscle weakness in the arms and legs, making it difficult to get around without leg braces or a walker. Shang has been collecting American Girl dolls for years, but now, with the help of her 17-year-old sister YingYing, she’s petitioning the company to make their next “Girl of the Year”–a special edition doll released annually–a character with whom she can identify.
“Being a disabled girl is hard,” Melissa wrote on her Change.org petition. “Muscular Dystrophy prevents me from activities like running and ice-skating, and all the stuff that other girls take for granted. For once, I don’t want to be invisible or a side character that the main American Girl has to help.”
American Girl embraces diversity — in the company’s official statement regarding the Shang sisters’ petition, a representative pointed out that its dolls have had various racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds, as well as accessories like hearing aids, wheelchairs and guide dogs that can be purchased to go with any of the dolls. But for Melissa, additional accessories aren’t enough. “I want other girls to know what it’s like to be me, through a disabled American Girl’s story,” she writes. “American Girls are supposed to represent all the girls that make up American history, past and present. That includes disabled girls.”
The Shang sisters’ earnest plea has become one of the fast-growing campaigns in Change.org history, garnering more than 16,400 signatures in its first 48 hours. Since then, more than 63,000 people have signed, making the petition less than 12,000 signatures shy of reaching its goal. American Girl hasn’t said whether they’ll fulfill the sisters’ request. But either way, the story of 10-year-old Melissa Shang is an inspiration to disabled girls all on its own.
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Tag: Muscular Dystrophy
This Dad Went to Heroic Lengths to Help His Disabled Sons Finish College
Brian Horan’s three sons were born with Duchenne, a severe form of muscular dystrophy that is often fatal by age 25. But rather than give in to despair, Horan, 47, set about building a future for his boys, including a college education. When they entered university, Horan quit his job as an auto mechanic in Colorado to become a full-time caretaker and help his wheelchair-bound sons navigate the campus of Metropolitan State University in Denver. To pass the time while his sons took classes, Horan enrolled too, and graduated with a degree in electrical engineering last month. After Horan’s two younger sons graduate next spring, he plans to help them move out on their own, with the support of Band of Brothers, a group for people with muscular dystrophy the Horans recently founded. “There are parents out there in situations like ours who worry about their kids to the point where they don’t let them or want them to experience life,” Horan told Anthony Cotton of the Denver Post. “We’re trying to push our kids to do as much as they can.”