Los Angeles, California

First there was Los Angeles: loud, larger-than-Cinemascope and looking to me like the Sears Christmas Wishbook come to life. I was a wide-eyed, brown-skinned, 11-year-old Filipina, on her first day in America. And not just America, but Hollywood—where I spotted women who actually resembled the one chesty, yellow-haired Barbie I owned, and saw the homes of Liberace, Marilyn, Cher, and other single-monikered American pop-culture icons.

Later I entered Disneyland—the temple mount of the immigrant promised land—wondering: Am I dreaming? Is all this fakery the real thing? Is it just a small world after all? Turns out, it was a small world, and while I no longer think of L.A. in such joyfully garish stereotypes, it remains to me a place where wishes can—and do—come true.

—Norie Quintos

Norie Quintos is Traveler’s consumer news editor.