We're Going to Disney World

 I’d like us all to take an imaginary trip to Disney World.

If you go to their website right now (https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/), there is a

banner of smiling people and a tagline that reads 

“Holiday Magic Is Here. And It’s Waiting For you.” 

I went to Disney World as a child and still 

remember how amazing it is and how magical it 

can feel. So let’s go. We’re going to Disney World. Grab your kids, grab your wife (lol),

grandparents, husband, besties, and everyone else important to you because 

you’ll want to share this magical experience with everyone you love.

You’ve seen pictures of the giant, 

magnificent castle, the fascinating 

characters, the enchanted areas 

created at the Epcot Center- this 

place is nothing like you’ve ever 

seen or experienced before and you 

are ready to go. Now take out your 

imaginary $5000 that you saved up 

over the years for this trip alone, and 

buy the transportation tickets (planes, trains, and automobiles), buy the park tickets, grab 

a Disney hat (because you must) and now enter the park. We’re having fun. I know this

 is your imagination, but trust me, we’re having fun. You look around at your loved ones 

and see their smiling faces, knowing they’ve never experienced such joy and freedom 

before. You all eat every meal at the park (another $1000...ok maybe you don’t eat as 

much as I do, so $500). You’re even staying at the Disney resort because, why not? 

You planned this trip for a length of one week, but on Thursday, in the middle of the night, 

your hotel doors are kicked in, there are assault rifles in your family’s face (including the 

3 year old), and you are surrounded by armed police.

Suddenly, they grab you and the 

other adults. You’re all put in handcuffs, 

dragged out of the hotel, and thrown 

in a van. When the doors open, you 

are back at your home and told you 

may never leave the house- oh, and 

your kids are staying in Disney World 

without you. Ok, that took a strange 

turn, but this is what I imagine when 

I hear about Mexican immigrant families being torn apart. 

 

I’m not saying people shouldn’t try to obtain legal status, and go through proper channels- 

yadda yadda yadda- but outside of law, on a human level, anyone can feel the wrong in 

these actions. Not everyone can relate to the experience of being a foreigner or immigrant, 

but all Americans have seen an ad for Disney World, and can imagine how awful it would 

be to have that experience interrupted by assault rifles and being torn away from your 

children and/or loved ones. My hope is to bring the immigrant experience to your doorstep 

“by recognizing him (foreigner) within [y]ourselves,” in the hopes of “spar[ing] detesting 

him in himself” (Julia Kristeva, Strangers to Ourselves). This is a different kind of exile. 

When I think of exile, I think of events of Biblical proportions, not my neighbors in 

McKinney who were there for years, then gone one day after a visit from ICE.

I suppose the disconnection is 

because exile is typically from a 

person’s native land. I am not from 

Texas, but I’ve lived all over this state 

for the last 25 years. If someone 

came to my house and suddenly told 

me I had to leave Texas- leave my 

friends, family, work, etc.- and never 

return, well, that would feel like 

the “unhealable rift”of exile (Edward Said, Reflections on Exile) I hope I didn’t just make 

a faulty comparison to the likes of Ellen Degenerates’ “Quarantine is like Prison”...

 

As a Black American, I’ve heard, “Go back to where you came from” plenty of times. The 

threat is made, but nothing ever happens except to internally ask, “Go back to where?” 

or “If I go, you have to go back too” (Because the irony is that the ones who most hate 

immigration are usually descendants of the ones who started immigration to America). 

Sure, I’ve heard it, but to see it actually happen is a far different experience. And, 

honestly, I ask the same question when it comes to immigrants who are deported 

after 20+ years of living in the United States- “Go back to where?” After decades of

living in the U.S., a whole life and existence has been curated here- jobs, careers, 

friends, family- and the children and family members have received degrees here 

(a stipulation of the Dream Act). Exile from the non-native land back to their native land, 

must be...more disorienting than traditional exile because you are not the same person 

who left the native land- you’ve seen too much, learned too much, and experienced too 

much. That home is no longer home, and once back in the native land, it is the “present 

that is foreign, and. . .the  past is home, albeit a lost home” 

(Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands).