American Girl: Release an American Girl Doll with a disability - Please sign the petition..

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• Petitioning Jean McKenzie 

American Girl: Release an American Girl Doll with a disability

1. 1. 
    
   2. Petition by
      Melissa & YingYing Shang
      Paoli, PA

As a girl with a disability, I’ve had to overcome obstacles since I was born.

I’m ten years old, and for as long as I can remember, I’ve had Charcot-Marie-Tooth, a form of muscular dystrophy. When I was seven, like most of my classmates, I fell in love with American Girl dolls—historical and modern girls with stories about overcoming obstacles. I’ve read all of the books, seen all of the movies, and even visited the American Girl Place in New York City. For the past three years, I’ve asked for an American Girl doll for Christmas.

Of all the American Girl dolls, my favorites are the Girl of the Years. Every year, American Girl introduces a brand-new character with a story about finding success in the face of challenges today. Girls of the Year come from all different places, from Hawaii to New Mexico, and they help girls learn what it’s like to be someone else. Through Saige, I learned what it’s like to be an artist and horseback rider. Through McKenna, I learned what it’s like to be a gymnast. Girls of the Year have helped me understand how it feels to be someone else.

However, none of the American Girl Girls of the Year are like me. None of them have a disability.

Being a disabled girl is hard. 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: I want other girls to know what it’s like to be me, through a disabled American Girl’s story.

Disabled girls might be different from normal kids on the outside. They might sit in a wheelchair like I do, or have some other difficulty that other kids don’t have. However, we are the same as other girls on the inside, with the same thoughts and feelings. American Girls are supposed to represent all the girls that make up American history, past and present. That includes disabled girls.

Please join me and my sister YingYing in asking American Girl to release a disabled Girl of the Year. Please, sign this petition to convince American Girl tell my story, and the story of disabled youth. Will you join me and see my dream come true?

To:
Jean McKenzie, President of American Girl and Executive Vice President of Mattel
American Girl, Mattel Inc. 

Every year, American Girl releases a Girl of the Year, who comes with a story and teaches girls about overcoming obstacles in today’s world. The biggest obstacle of all is being born with a disability. Please, American Girl, release a Girl of the Year for 2015 who is in a wheelchair, so that all girls can learn about the difficulty of being born with a disability. Disabled girls are American girls too. They have the same thoughts and feelings, and deserve to have their stories told. Thank you so much for telling the stories of so many girls throughout American history—and thank you in advance for telling this one.

Sincerely,
[Your name]

To sign the petition change.org: CLICK HERE