Too much joy
Today: Anna Merlan, author of REPUBLIC OF LIES: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power.
Issue No. 285
Garden of Earthly Delights
Anna Merlan
Garden of Earthly Delights
by Anna Merlan
“You see?” my mom said, pointing out the window of our hotel room in Anaheim, California, where laborers in the field next door were picking strawberries. I was maybe eight years old or so, and she was never one to miss an opportunity.
“That’s what it takes to make Disneyland. That’s who’s working while you get to play. Don’t forget that.” I think she found the idea of inducting us into the Mouse hivemind distasteful, but she had a conference nearby, and had decided it would be cruel not to bring her children along.
The H&M Fujishige Farm wasn’t a Disney farm, though. It was founded by two brothers whose family was cruelly and repeatedly uprooted by racist, anti-Japanese laws, until the farm they bought for $3,500 offered stability. The family held out for 20 years against Disney pressure to sell, until 1998, by which time the land was valued at around $90 million. Masao Fujishige had died by suicide in 1986; his older brother Hiroshi suffered a brain injury after a fall in February of 1998, and would die not long after the sale. Hiroshi Fujishige was a loved and respected figure in Anaheim, praised by city officials and employees alike.
“I began working for him when I was 16 years old, and he always treated me like a son,” said Pancho Contreras, who worked for Fujishige for 19 years, interviewed by the Los Angeles Times. “If you ever saw my boss, you would never know that he was a wealthy man. He was one of the most humble and simple men I’ve ever known.”
I remember exactly three things about that day: sitting in the buggy at the Haunted Mansion, splashing down through the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and, most of all, the farm workers whom I’d been advised to keep in mind.
I never returned to Disneyland after that, until my husband and I and two friends, a journalist and an artist, planned a visit a couple of weeks before the inauguration: four childless adults wandering through the park on a random weekday. A deliberately stupid farewell to this stage in American history? Just a day off? We didn’t fully articulate any of this to each other or perhaps even ourselves, we just bought the tickets and downloaded the proprietary Disneyland app. But when the time approached, Los Angeles was on fire, and the tickets were nonrefundable. After all the delays and scheduling conflicts, we found ourselves standing at the gates in a long security line, five weeks into the second Trump presidency. Things were feeling, on balance, a lot less funny.
Keep us breathing fire!
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