Going to Disneyland for me was an old childhood dream which is awakened every time I see any Disney movie or Disney character. The first sentence you read in Disneyland is "Dreams come true" and for me, going to Disneyland was like a dream come true. I always thought of it as a place faraway where people go to lose themselves in a beautiful fantasy and forget about the burdens of life. Arriving at Disneyland was like entering a dream full of exciting rides, colourful food and all the Disney characters I ever wanted to meet. I definitely didn't want to wake up from this dream. The beauty of Disneyland measured up to my humble expectations in the sense that I found out more interesting things than I ever expected to find and see.Disneyland is a place for both children and adults to enjoy themselves.

However, most of the visitors were families so I had to chance to see many different American families. One of the first things I noticed was the multiculturalism of the place but it didn’t end there. I was struck by the different mixed children resulting from inter-racial and inter-cultural marriages. During our long stay, I saw over 15 mixed couples including a white-American man and an African American woman, Latino woman with an African American man and an Asian man with a white-American woman. However, most of the mixed couples had young children except a few who had children my own age. This made wonder if this is because older children don't go with their parents to Disneyland or go out with their parents at all or because most inter-racial marriages occurred recently. I'm aware of the fact that it was hard for couples from different races to get married before the second half of the 20th century because of some official laws but after the 1950's, it was mainly because of society's disapproval. Apparently, inter-racial marriages are considered more appropriate nowadays seeing that most people in Disneyland didn't look at mixed couples in a strange way. However, when we were standing up waiting for the fireworks to start, I noticed two white-American couples next to us who had two African-American or African babies. I wasn't shocked by this because inter-racial adopting wasn't new to me. I've seen it before in Africa, Asia and even in my one-week long stay in America. The first thing that came to mind when I saw them was whether the babies were adopted from Africa or from an orphanage here in America. I've seen old European couples in Africa before with newly adopted African babies. This is one of the reasons why I found it funny how people were so interested in Angelina Jolie and Madonna adopting African babies although hundreds of couples did the same thing years before them. Just before the fireworks started, one of the babies started to cry and some people turned around to look. This reaction was normal since it is just another example of human's curiosity but their facial expressions were attention-grabbing. I noticed that the couples behind them were dumbfounded. So shocked at the concept of inter-racial adopting, they asked them if they are their kids. I wondered if the couples were asked this question many times.
Inter-racial dating, inter-racial marriages and inter-racial adopting in Disneyland didn't only reflect America's multi-culturalism but it also represented "the facial features" of the world in a few decades. This reminded me of a Canadian talk show host who said that "after all this mixing happens, our great great grandchildren will be a mix of Indian and Chinese" during one of his shows. America is not the first country where a lot of mixing occurred in fact there are countries inhabited by people of mixed heritage such as Sao Tome and Principe, Madagascar and Brazil.Additionally, the guests or visitors weren't the only ones representing Disneyland’s multiculturalism, the employees contributed to that too. I really liked how all employees wore buttons with their names and hometowns on it. Not only did Disneyland have Americans from different races and cultures working there but they also hired Americans from different states. I think that the airport and Disneyland are both the faces of America. So, hiring Americans from all over America is a wise thing to do. Obviously, I know that the airport is the real face of America because it's the first place you see when you arrive here but Disneyland is international too seeing that people from all over the world know about it. Personally, I knew about the existence of Disneyland even before I knew that the airport in New York is called John F. Kennedy or JFK.

Disneyland for me was a remarkable experience not only because I was able to go somewhere I've dreamed about for a long time but also because I felt that I fitted in. Disneyland represented the melting pot. It was a place where different kinds of people went to have a nice time and while we were all enjoying ourselves, our differences became trivial. We all had similarities though. For example, one of the similarities I shared with about 1,000 visitors was riding the Indiana Jones ride.