MEXIFORNIA Victor Davis Hanson 98

MEXIFORNIA Victor Davis Hanson 99

both towns more resemble those left behind in Mexico than those

in the United States, and therefore less safe, secure and desirable

places to live. The Mendota resident amplified just that feeling by

explaining to me that he liked living in a community with educated

doctors, teachers, small business, and English as the standard lan-

guage�"because �śthings work better that way.” Or as my friend

from Parlier put it: �śIf I wanted to live in Mexico, I don’t need to

live in Parlier.”

The immigration problem is much more than just a result of

our demand and their supply. And the resulting muddle arises not

because we are too crowded per se. Japan, after all, feeds, clothes

and educates three times as many as we do without the natural

wealth or open spaces of a California. If we were committed to

metering immigration and demanding language immersion and

complete assimilation of all new arrivals, California in time could

handle a steady stream of legal Mexican immigrants.

The problem, rather, is the changing attitude toward immi-

gration and assimilation�"making too many of us increasingly

separate and unequal, and thus apprehensive that a big state with

plenty of room is already too crowded for what we have become.

It has always been easier for people who emigrate to keep their

own culture than to join the majority�"if we have learned any-

thing from our turn-of-the-century arrivals, it is that assimilation

is difficult�" but for the first time in our nation’s history it is now

also felt to be easier for their hosts to let them do so.

Rarely now do southwesterners express a confidence in our

culture or a willingness to defend the larger values of Western

civilization. The result is that our public schools are either apa-

thetic about, or outright hostile to the Western paradigm�"even

as millions from the south are voting with their feet and their lives

to enjoy what we so often smugly dismiss. Our elites do not under-

stand just how rare consensual government is in the history of

civilization. They wrongly think that we can instill confidence by

praising the less successful cultures that aliens are escaping, rather