An adorable 10-year-old is asking the makers of the American Girl dolls to introduce a character that, like her, has a disability.
"Disabled girls are American girls too," Melissa Shang says in a video posted with her petition. "We face challenges and overcome them every day."
Melissa suffers from Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a neurological disorder and form of muscular dystrophy that causes muscle weakness and numbness. She uses a wheelchair or a walker to get around.
The fifth-grader from the Philadelphia suburb of Paoli, Pa., has been a big fan of the popular dolls since she was 7 years old, and her favorites are the Girl of the Year characters.
According to the American Girl website, these limited-edition dolls "give voice to a diverse range of personalities and backgrounds." However, there has not been one that has a disability.
With the help of her 17-year-old sister YingYing, Melissa launched a Change.org petition asking the Wisconsin-based brand to release a disabled doll as its 2015 Girl of the Year.
"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," Melissa's petition says.
American Girl does sell accessories like a “Feel-Better Kit” that comes with crutches and casts, as well as a doll-sized wheelchair, but there are no characters with permanent or life-altering disabilities.
The push for change came after the sisters had a conversation about the 2014 Girl of the Year who, as rumors suggested, turned out to be a blond ballerina named Isabelle.
"My sister was like, 'Wow, another blond girl who's a dancer,'" YingYing told the Philadelphia Daily News. "So we started talking about who she wanted to see in an American Girl."
The petition was posted Saturday night. It had almost 10,000 supported by Tuesday afternoon.
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