Mexifornia : A State of a Becoming [Paperback]

Victor Davis Hanson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 25, 2004

This book is part history, part political analysis and part memoir. It is an intensely personal book about what has changed in California over the last quarter century.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In an atmosphere rife with so much hypocrisy, Mr. Hanson's outspoken book is quite a breath of fresh air."

About the Author

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist at California State University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 150 pages
• Publisher: Encounter Books (September 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594030561
• ISBN-13: 978-1594030567
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #538,219 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

182 of 201 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrifying July 8, 2005

By Jeffrey Leach HALL OF FAMEVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I've never lived in California, let alone visited the state for any period of time, and after reading Victor Davis Hanson's "Mexifornia: A State of Becoming," I wondered how anyone in their right mind would want to go anywhere near there. Sure, if you're a wealthy celebrity who earns millions making movies in Hollywood, California probably isn't that bad of a place. If you're a wealthy executive with one of the Silicon Valley firms, California is likely just dandy. In other words, if you've got enough money to live in a heavily fortified compound, only having to drive into the city in a motorcade with enough security to wage war against a small country, California is great. Regrettably, the other 99% of the population doesn't have it so good. They have to contend with a crime rate that staggers the imagination, sky-high property values, and millions of illegal aliens largely responsible for most of the state's financial woes. California taxpayers spend billions of dollars a year to warehouse millions of poor immigrants. Victor Hanson, a lifelong native, examines the illegal alien problem in a way few other authors can manage. He's spent his entire life seeing the problem up close and personal, and it's a problem of earth shattering dimensions.

Hanson expresses little hostility for Mexicans or Mexican-Americans. He grew up in a small farming town where most of his friends and neighbors were--and still are--Mexican immigrants. The author understands that most Mexicans who went through the assimilation process in the 1950s and 1960s are industrious, proud citizens who went on to contribute much to American society.... He also recognizes that many of the illegal aliens who arrive in California today are industrious individuals who likely would go on to become proud citizens with much to offer their adopted country. Understanding Hanson's background and views of Mexicans should immediately banish the label of "racist" to the garbage bin. He's definitely not a supremacist or a separatist. He is, however, gravely concerned with the present state of federal immigration policy and how both the political right and left view the millions of poor illegals flowing into the country. According to Hanson, the pro-business right sees opposition to undocumented immigrants as nativist and isolationist, and the left views critics of the immigration imbroglio in similar terms, labeling anyone who dares support a tighter border a racist and a hater. Hanson rejects both of these arguments as cynical emanations from a small cadre of special interests that have a lot to gain from exploiting the poor Mexicans entering this country.

And exploitation it is, an ugly exploitation that should shame any decent American. Hanson shows us how ugly as he outlines the typical illegal immigrant's experiences in the United States. The average Mexican who enters this country can expect a bleak future. Paid under the counter by business owners to pick fruit, mow lawns, and do other jobs American citizens disdain, the immigrant works long hours for little money. Worse, he's tossed aside when age and years of rough work reduces his body to a knot of aches and pains. The closeness of his homeland inhibits assimilation here, as do the race hustlers in the universities and government. These fools, mostly Chicano studies professors but also bureaucrats and busybodies, work night and day trying to convince illegal aliens that America is an evil, racist country that wants to strip away every vestige of Mexican culture from those streaming over the border. The old assimilationist idea, that those coming to America recognize the greatness of this country and will work hard to learn its habits and customs, never takes root in the new immigrants. Instead, a sense of entitlement to government subsidies and special favors unavailable to citizens becomes the new reality.

Special scholarships to the state universities, housing, welfare checks, free healthcare--these special favors and many more might help keep the immigrant relatively comfortable during their stay in the United States, but these benefits also serve to keep the immigrant insulated from currents that could bring them into citizenship. Why apply for that status in the United States when you get all this neat stuff for free? With all of this free money floating around, you would think Mexican immigrants are well off. You'd be wrong. Hanson rightfully points out that very few Hispanics, regardless of legal status, graduate from high school. Even fewer earn a degree in college. Why? Because there is no impetus to succeed, no external force that tells these people that they must conform to American expectations let alone try to earn citizenship. When Hanson attended grade school back in the 1950s and 1960s, he tells us, his teachers pushed an unabashedly pro-American agenda in nearly every class. And it wasn't just Mexicans under the gun, but Hanson himself when he touted his Swedish ancestry during a show and tell presentation. In the old days teachers, the media, and our institutions pushed newcomers to accept their new country and change their behavior accordingly. No more.

We better go back to a pro-assimilationist culture, argues Hanson, or we're all in grave trouble. If we refuse to deal with this problem, the author claims, California will turn into "Mexifornia," a country that is neither Mexico nor California but a nation that exhibits the worst of both cultures. Considering social movements in California often foreshadow trends in the rest of the country, the rest of our states will become Mexifornias if something isn't done to stymie the flow of illegals and prevent the continued exploitation of generation after generation of those immigrants. Hanson's book is must reading for anyone concerned about the reckless immigration policies foisted upon us by the government. We need to change our border policy for ourselves and for those people who come here seeking a better life. Read more ›

91 of 105 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Treasure of the Sierra Nevada February 15, 2005

By yankee-in-ca

Format:Paperback

AN EXCERPT FROM PAGE 139:

I used to hear Spanish ballads out in the fields, blaring on the radios of plum pickers [who] wore khaki-like uniforms with straw hats and said "si señor -- no señor" when told to pick fruit by color or size. They looked and acted like the peasants in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre." Now the illegal alien plays gehtto-inspired rap, wears his baseball cap backwards, is amply tattooed, and is more likely to answer "OK already" or "No problema" -- mimicking Schwarzenegger rather than speaking Spanish. I miss the old world; those in this new world would not.

(End quote.)

Hanson's delightful little book would make a happy companion to Windschuttle's "The Killing of History: How Literary Critics and Social Theorists are Murdering Our Past." Windschuttle is also an academic, but he never leaves the ivory tower; his is always the (equally entertaining) view from ABOVE. Victor Hanson is also an academic, but he owns a farm south of Fresno, and this spellbinding book is multiculturalism as it looks ON THE GROUND. One of his more compelling conjectures is that academia and the press have helped legitimize "tribalist" (I love it!) victimhood, a hypothesis that has broad implications for the culture of poverty everywhere in the U.S.

This thought-provoking treasure is also, in its wit and entertaining style, the book Tom Wolfe (Bonfire of the Vanities) or David Brooks (Bobos in Paradise) would have written if they weren't stuck back in old New York. (The New Yorker: "California, harbinger of everything...") His vignettes from life ring so true the reader can't help but laugh with recognition....

Hanson is honest about his nostalgia, honest about his predictable "today's youth ain't up to snuff" phase of life, honest about everything. But despite some blunders ("North America was originally settled by Northern Europeans"), a racist he is not. I waited until the penultimate page for him to mention what we can learn from the many strengths of the Mexican family, but he finally did.*

I'm a Massachusetts Yankee in California half my life now. I didn't expect to agree with everything this fourth-generation native said -- that's part of the fun -- but I got the sense that he didn't end up with the book he set out to write, either. Though very conservative, he's refreshingly devoid of a triumphalist agenda. Neocons will be disappointed by his definition of the Good Life, for example, and his unfettered thinking in general.

(This book show up under the topic of the war on terror. He mentions it only in the context of uncontrolled immigration, and only in passing.)

Hanson gets high marks for even attempting to tackle such a complex problem, but nothing makes for a better read than new ideas intelligently set forth in the most engaging possible way.

*See "Con Respeto" by Dr. Valdes for the hard-working illegal-alien perspective, or the fictional "Tortilla Curtain" by T.C. Boyle for another, more tragic view FROM BELOW. Read more ›

36 of 41 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars a Must read for anyone who thinks they know about migration November 13, 2005

By Brian Dowrick

Format:Paperback

This is one of those rare books, that should be mandatory reading, by anyone who wants to open their mouth about immigration.

This book is laid out in a very articulate, non-agenda, balanced view of the state of immigration in the united states regarding Mexico.

If you are For or Against Undocumented workers (those with no formal US citizenship), then you should take a look at Mexifornia.

All sides are looked at. It is quite apparent that the writer was very concerned with not offending anyone too much. After reading,

or listening to, many political books, this is by far one of the least "preachy". It lays out the facts, as seen through the eyes of a

Peach Farmer in Southern California, and scholar of immigration history.

It also gives you a Democratic point of View, a Republican point of view, a Big business point of view, Liberal point of view, town view,

country view, worker view, old migrant view, new new migrant view. Even a point of view from both male and female migrants. And

the differences in past migration, and present. Very thorough.

A Very good book.

A must Read (or better yet, get the audio book)

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A really honest account December 8, 2006

By Reader

Format:Paperback

The author is a 4th-generation Californian of European descent, but has many close relatives and even more friends of Mexican descent. He is the rare commentator who articulates clearly both sides of the issues, the rare academic who lives the subject personally as well as abstractly, and he reveals clearly the motivations of all the partisans.

His harshest criticism is not of illegal immigrants -- though he points out their many negative aspects -- but of hypocritical Anglo and Hispanic leftists or liberals including those in university social science departments. It's their ideology that both encourages mass illegal immigration and keeps the new immigrants down and out once they get here. Conservative business owners who take advantage of illegal labor because it's cheap also get slammed.

I'm impressed at what a clear vision Hanson has, and how solid his arguments are. No demerits though he has no bibliography and there are no footnotes. He has lived the subject all his life, and sees its importance from the greater historical perspective of his profession as a classics professor (i.e., European cultural history).

Highly recommended, no matter which side of the fence you're on. So to speak.