From Iraq to the Happiest Place on Earth

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-yoshino-20120108,0,4655194.column ^ | January 7, 2012, 6:31 p.m. | By Kimi Yoshino, Los Angeles Times

[thecodont]

The fireworks at Disneyland had ended. It was past closing time and the crowds were pouring out the gates, but we lingered.

Layla Alshawi, the 63-year-old mother of our friends, didn't want to leave. She hugged a light pole, joking that we would have to drag her out.

We'd spent three days at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim with my friend, Saif Alnasseri, his wife, mother and 5-year-old daughter.

Like my husband, whose name is also Saif, he was an Iraqi translator I met in 2007 during my rotations in the Los Angeles Times' Baghdad bureau. A little over three years ago, under a refugee program granted to Iraqis who assisted the U.S. military or media, he immigrated to New Jersey. This was their first trip to California.

For me, the "magic" of Disney had started to wear thin after dozens of visits plus several years of covering the park — from stories about the opening of new rides (and California Adventure) to probes into accidents there.

The novelty of Disneyland had long evaporated.

Until recently.

Now the park has come to hold a different meaning as I experienced it again — this time through the eyes of my husband and Iraqi friends.