EA Eagle Angle Newspaper
Students put on ‘Wizard of Oz’ wmusical pg. 10 & 11
Wrestling wins Dual State for fifth year pg. 15
3 students model as extracurricular pg. 8
photo by Saher Aqeel
photo by Lauren Duncan
photo submitted by Shaylee Butler
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Allen High School // Allen, Texas, 75002 // Volume 30, Issue 4 // February 11, 2013
From Russia with love...no more
Russia bans Americans from adopting Russian children
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he law is named after a Russian toddler who died of heatstroke in his American adoptive father’s car in 2008. Buster said he has heard stories about children being sent back to Russia if their adoptive parents found them disabled. “You know, that’s the center of it, and I don’t think American people should [send orphans back] because you need to understand where [the orphans] are coming from,” Buster said. “They’ve had parents that have been alcoholic or drug addicts that cause them to have a physical scar in their lives.” Americans first saw the ban as Russian retaliation against the American Magnitsky Act that was put
managing editor graphic by Garrett Holcombe // graphic designer
ying on the white hospital bed in the Intensive Care Unit, 5-year-old Shutong Hao can feel the wires attached to her body from the machines on her sides. Light purple walls and curtains border the room. Machines and computers surround her, but as the time ticks closer to her surgery, she isn’t afraid, even though in the next 16 hours, a boy’s heart is going to replace her own. “I didn’t know what I was getting myself into or what I was going into,” Hao said. “I didn’t really feel any fear. I actually feel more fear now than I
did back then just because I was so little and naïve.” Now, 11 years later as a junior, Hao is declared completely healthy by her doctors. “I would say there is absolutely nothing that makes her seem very different than what is the defined normal besides the medicine,” Hao’s close friend, junior Catherine Osborn, said. “She’s special, but she’s not handicapped. I don’t feel like she’s handicapped at all.”
The diagnosis
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into effect on Dec. 6. The Magnitsky Act condemned Russia for human rights abuses and required the Russian government to deny visas to and freeze the assets of Russian citizens accused of such abuses. However, in an interview with CNN on Jan. 27, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the Dima Yakovlev Law expresses the Russian government’s concern with the welfare of its nation’s children, not political revenge. “A large number of American families
who adopted Russian children really provide the correct care, upbringing and education,” Medvedev said. “And in that case, they get high marks. This is the highly moral attitude. But unfortunately, in our country we know a lot of cases when children adopted by American parents died or were tortured or lost their health in the U.S., and even one such case would be enough to suggest the draft of a law for consideration.”
In perspective
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ccording to the U.S. State Department, more than 60,000 orphans have been adopted // continued on pg 3
It just seems like every single day I was in America it was a happy place. junior Reece Buster (right)
graphic by Madyson Russell // layout editor
Junior recalls heart surgery at age 5
story by Grace Lee //
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A “protective” ban
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ao was diagnosed with congenital heart disease, which is a defect in the structure of the heart that is present from birth. Hao said that she was not supposed to live past the age of 2. She received
a heart transplant on June 6, 2001, at the University of California in Los Angeles Medical Center. “It’s humbling really because I’m not supposed to be alive,” Hao said. “People are dying every day because of the same exact problems, but they’re not as fortunate. They still struggle to fight for life.” Hao was born in Beijing, but doctors there told her parents that she was inoperable. When Hao was 2, her family moved to Los Angeles, after her parents received a confirmation of a doctor who would operate on Hao. Before the heart transplant, Hao received two open heart surgeries when she was 3 years old to prolong her life. While living in Los Angeles, the Haos found a donor’s heart that
matched with Hao’s. “I don’t think you can describe [my parents’] happiness because I can’t even imagine,” Hao said. “If my kid was condemned to death, and you thought forever and ever that they were going to die and that at any point, they were not going to wake up, and then suddenly, they’re okay and they’re given a new life, I don’t think you can put that happiness into words.” The donor was 5 years old when he passed away. Hao said that her family and the donor’s family were close until the Haos moved to Texas when she was 5 years old. “We still contact the donor family,” Hao said. “Even though they still live in California, they still treat me like a daughter, as one of their kids because I have one of their kid’s hearts.”
Before the surgery
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n Los Angeles, the Haos stayed in a Ronald McDonald home which is dedicated to providing a place to stay for families with kids
who have serious ongoing medical problems. According to PubMed Health, CHD causes more deaths in the first year of life than any other birth defect. Until she was 5, Hao said that she was not able to eat, so doctors had to place a feeding tube through her nose down to her stomach. Due to lack of oxygen, Hao’s skin was blue and she could not breathe, so she said she carried an oxygen tank with her at all times. “I remember a few specific incidents like when I was in the shower once when I was really little, the feeding tube that I had started to come out,” Hao said. “That scared me so much because it’s a tube that long, and it goes all the way down to your stomach and if that comes out, they have to put it back in. It was horrible.”
Effect on her
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ao said that she undergoes a biopsy and a cardiac catheterization every two years, a doctor’s appointment every six // continued on pg 8
Inside news 2-3 // feature 7-9// center 10-11 // opinions 12-14 // sports 15-19 // photo essay 20
Allen High School // Issue 4 // February 13, 2013
story by Megan Lucas // assistant editor t 4 years old, junior adoption of Russian children Reece Buster weighed 17 by American families like pounds. Buster’s. Russian president At 4 years old, Buster had Vladimir Putin first approved never felt a mother’s hug. the ban Dec. 27. According He lived in a nameless to Putin, one goal of orphanage 395 miles south the ban is to encourage of Moscow in Penza, Russia, adoption by Russians where the winters were within the nation. bitter and mosquitoes “They’ve been swarmed in the summer. saying that [they Until, at 4 years old, wanted to increase an American couple adopted inside adoptions] him. for the past 10 years, “I was relieved [to be and it hasn’t happened,” adopted],” Buster said. “Because executive director of throughout the whole time I was Adoption Covenant there, there would be American agency Merinda Condra people, and all of us wanted to, said. “I don’t know what’s you know, just [say] ‘Take me going to be different now.” home,’ and they would pick you up and hug you, but then they would set you down and that would really hurt inside.” senior Marek Koons On Jan. 1 the Dima Yakovlev Law went into effect in Russia, banning the