The Power of Imagination in the Hall of Presidents

The fall in North Texas, where I live, is State Fair season, which means the animatronic Big Tex returns to the fairgrounds.  With the exception of treats like fried butter, few things at the Fair spark more delight for me than seeing Big Tex wave and hearing the 55-foot animatronic greet fair-goers with a booming “Howdy, folks!!”

Since I was a little girl, I’ve been fascinated by animatronics. I enjoy them because they exist for pure joy. They are a quirky mashup of science and art; their only purpose is entertainment. We need more things that exist with joy as their only purpose. 

My favorite animatronics are at Disney World. I remember the first time I saw the animatronic of Abraham Lincoln in The Hall of Presidents stand up – on its own! –  from a chair.  My mouth fell open in awe, and the Hall of Presidents instantly became my favorite attraction in the Magic Kingdom.  

Whenever a new US President takes office, Disney adds an animatronic of that President to the display, which means the attraction changes every four to eight years. As we head into this year’s presidential election season, I’ve been thinking about the Hall of Presidents and what it might be like for Disney to add an animatronic of Kamala Harris to the display. 

I know seeing a Kamala Harris animatronic among the 45 male animatronics in the Hall of Presidents will take my breath away.  I feel overwhelmed by what it might mean for girls, especially girls of color, to see a Black, Asian American woman standing among all those men on the stage, even if it’s just an animatronic. 

An adage says you can’t be what you can’t see. And in my life, that has been true. 

When I was 11 years old, I remember sitting in the back seat of my grandmother’s big Cadillac with my brother and my cousins, and my grandmother asked us, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” 

I am the oldest grandchild and was pretty precocious at age 11. At that moment, I remember thinking I wanted to do something significant with my life. Something that might change the world.  I wanted to ensure that my answer was big and important and captured all I wanted to do when I grew up. When I answered my grandmother, I came up with the biggest and most significant job I could think of: the President of the United States. 

When I told her this, my grandmother laughed at my answer. I remember feeling deeply hurt by that response.  I’m sure my hurt showed on my face because my grandmother went on to say, “Don’t be ridiculous. You could never be elected President. Not in this country.” 

I was devastated by my grandmother’s revelation.  I accepted what she said as true, and my dream of being President of the United States left me as quickly as the idea had entered my head that afternoon. 

For my grandmother, the idea that a Black woman might be president was as ridiculous as a clown in the circus. My grandmother was born in the 1920s in Mississippi, and she witnessed the horrors of Jim Crow firsthand. Like my other grandparents, my grandmother was part of the First Great Migration. She moved to the North, hoping to create a better life for my mom and her sisters. But no matter where she lived, my grandmother discovered there would always be limitations. In my grandmother’s experience, structural racism meant there were limits to how far Black people could rise. The Presidency of the United States was beyond that limit.  

To be clear, Black people like my grandmother were not resigned to this reality. Black people in my grandmother’s generation and the generations after continued to fight for civil rights and justice to challenge these limits for Black people. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, and it bends towards justice.”  We’ve seen shifts in these limits since my grandmother told me the Presidency was an aspiration beyond me in the back of her Cadillac.  Barack Obama became the first Black President in 2008. None of my grandparents lived to see Barack Obama get elected. I often think about what it would have been like for them to witness a Black man rise to the highest office in the land. 

I remember what it felt like for me the day Obama won the election. I was at a friend’s house in California with a group to watch the election results.  We expected that we would be in for a long night. We were wrong about having to wait. When the polls closed in California at 8 PM, it was so clear that Obama had won – and won big – that the media called it.  My friend and I were the only Black people in the room, and when we heard the announcement, we instantly looked at each other and exchanged looks of shock and absolute joy.   The room exploded with celebration. 

I remember thinking, “We finally did it. The barrier has been cracked.” That Tuesday in November 2008 forever changed what was possible for Black people.

Representation matters. It’s hard to be what you can’t see, and for little Black children around the country, after that day, they would now see a Black President. These children’s dreams of being President were no longer something to be dismissed with laughter. 

There’s brain science behind the impact of being able to imagine a future on our ability to achieve that future. 

A 2018 Study in Neuron shows that being able to vividly imagine something lights up the same areas of the brain as when we physically do that thing.  This effect isn’t just in our heads. According to research, visualization alone can physically change our bodies. If you can vividly imagine your future by engaging all your five senses and being as specific as possible, you are more likely to be able to accomplish a goal. Seeing Kamala Harris in the Hall of Presidents attraction can help little girls visualize being President of the United States because they can see what’s possible on the stage right in front of them. 

Whether you want Kamala Harris to win the election in November or not, it’s hard to deny what her election could represent for little girls.  A 2019 Study from the Geena Davis Institute showed that what girls and young women see in the media affects their ambitions and aspirations.  Suppose Kamala Harris wins, and Disney puts her animatronic in the Hall of Presidents. Little girls who walk into that attraction will see a woman – a Black, Asian American woman – *can* be President.  More will be possible for them because of what they see.

I can’t wait to live in a world where little girls have fewer limitations and can imagine more for themselves. I hope that one day soon, little girls and their grandmothers can see more possibilities—I believe the world will be better for it.