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.MEXIFORNIA Victor Davis Hanson 10MEXIFORNIA Victor Davis Hanson 11terfeit as well.Immigration, assimilation and the entire dilemmaof the Mexican border are insidious problems—a moral quagmirein which any posing as ethical instructors had better take care thatthey themselves, either implicitly or overtly, do not in some waybenefit from the presence of unassimilated illegal aliens.In some sense, I know Mexican-Americans perhaps betterthan I do so-called whites.I confess—not out of any racialistfeeling, but simply because of habit and custom—that I feel morecomfortable with the people I grew up with, a population ofmostly Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, and whites who were raisedwith nonwhites.I have Mexican-American nephews, nieces, sisters-in-law and prospective sons-in-law as well as neighbors.My olderbrother married a Mexican-American; my twin brother married ahigh school friend who was divorced from a Mexican illegal alien.I married someone from Selma High School whose family hadleft Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl depression.The neighboringfarmhouse to the west is home to resident Mexicans; so is the oneimmediately to the east.My two daughters are going steady withMexican-Americans who grew up nearby in Selma; and the peopleI eat lunch with, talk with and work with are all either Mexicanor Mexican-American.And so I have come to the point where thequestion of race per se has become as superficial and unimportantin my personal life as it has become fractious and acrimonious onthe community, state and national levels.Some of the paradoxes,hypocrisies and hilarities that characterize California as a resultof changing attitudes and more immigrants are subjects of thisbook.Two themes dominate most of what has been written aboutMexicans in California, and I have tried to avoid both.On theone extreme, we hear scary statistics that “prove” California willbecome part of Mexico by the sheer fact of immigration.On theother, we are told that either nothing much is changing, or thatwhat alterations are occurring in the fabric of our social life are allpositive.The truth, as always, is in between: California is passing [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]