Growing up, going to Disney World was what I imagined being invited to the Met Gala must be like. My dad would book the trip to Orlando months in advance and we would go shopping for flowery shirts at Marshalls in preparation for the sticky Florida heat. I’d make a list of all the characters I wanted autographs from — Stitch, Pluto, and Mickey were non-negotiables. My uncles and grandma would fly from Mexico to meet up with us and we’d spend a weekend indulging in the theme park, riding roller coasters, petting robot animals, and eating cotton candy on Main Street. While the trip might seem like just a sweet memory, for Pa, being able to take us to Disney World was an immense source of pride. It was his way of giving us the type of childhood that he could only have dreamed of.
These were some of the warmest and most carefree memories I have of our early years in the U.S. As a feminine, Chinese-Mexican immigrant kid who struggled to understand his place in suburban Texas, Disney made me feel like coming to America, in some cosmic sense, had been worth it. The theme parks buzzed with a sense that there were no limits to what I could dream and taking pictures with characters felt like meeting long lost friends. At Disney World, I didn’t have to consider what anyone would think about my thick Spanish accent or “smelly” lunches — I could just be a kid.
