Seasonal Ethnic Celebrations at Disney California Adventure
Year in its early iterations made barely a blip on DCA ’ s annual event calendar radar . Situated within the same area of DCA in Paradise Garden , Lunar New Year festivities initially took up significantly less space and provided fewer merchandising and food opportunities for park guests . Where ¡ Viva Navidad ! had expanded its food offerings by taking over part of Paradise Gardens Grill with a full seasonal menu , initial Lunar New Year food offerings were limited to one small cart that featured steamed pork buns , fortune cookies , and sourdough bread that had been shaped to include images of rams .
Despite the DRGs and their seemingly good intentions of ethnic inclusivity with Lunar New Year , the festivities themselves highlight essentializing elements found with Traditional Disney Ideologies . For instance , Chip and Dale and Mickey and Minnie Mouse wear Disney versions of traditional Chinese celebration garb . Mickey and Minnie have generally been read as representations of whiteness that explicitly represent Traditional Disney Ideologies since they are the primary characters and icons of the Disney Company itself . A Disneyfied and Disneyized version of cultural appropriation , this could be interpreted as using ‘ yellow-face ’ to exploit Chinese identity for the purposes of selling merchandise .
Lunar New Year is one of the few times of year that the face character Mulan , from the 1998 film of the same name , is featured prominently . During field observations at Lunar New Year 2015 , I noticed that Mulan was often swamped with lines of ten to fifteen people ( comprised of both children and adults ) that wanted autographs , hugs , and pictures taken with this “ rare ” Disney face character . Several culture critics have noted that Mulan and Disney ’ s telling of her story are not very accurate representations of Chinese culture specifically , or even Asian culture in general ( Ma 149 ). However , Disney ’ s cultural appropriation of an important Chinese her-
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