MEXIFORNIA Victor Davis Hanson 78

with bad transmissions, old Rivieras that get ten miles to the gallon,

or minivans with bald tires and no seat belts. Forget, as environ-

mentalists have, about the matrix of problems with smog control,

gas mileage, licensing, registration and insuranceâ€"all the protocols

that cost an environmentally conscious Californian thousands of

dollars each yearâ€"and simply consider that our least trained driv-

ers are now behind the wheels of our most lethal automobiles.

Frequently right next to this impromptu immaculate holy

place is a sofa, rotting and full of vermin. It would seem that if

one alien can find the time and the means to erect a neat white

cross at the side of a vineyard and from time to time refurbish

the memorial with hand-lettered cards in Spanish, surely another

can forgo dumping a sofa on the consecrated roadside. And if the

keeper of the deceased’s memory periodically brings candles and

fresh flowers to grace the site of his lost one’s death, why does he

not at least remove the abandoned sofa that mars the sanctity of

his memorial?

There are now calls to supply illegal aliens with California

driver’s licensesâ€"a last-ditch response to the growing number of

immigrants who do not always drive well and rarely do so under

legal conditions, but are nevertheless on our freeways in enormous

clunkers that sometimes engage in an ethnic version of demoli-

tion derby. The problem with such a statute is not its logicâ€"ease

and safety of transportation for workers is never to be casually

discountedâ€"but its effect on the mentality of legal California

citizens. When California children turn sixteen, they go through a

well-known ritual of presenting a birth certificate to the Depart-

ment of Motor Vehicles to authenticate their age. If you doubt the

regularity of this drama, go to any DMV office and listen to irate

moms at the counter on their cell phones, calling home for some-

one to go through the kitchen drawers and bring down junior’s

long-lost birth certificate so that he might at least have a crack at

getting his driving permit.

But if no such documentation is required of aliens, will we