MEXIFORNIA Victor Davis Hanson

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MEXIFORNIA Victor Davis Hanson

37

to morph as easily into “whites” as did the discriminated-against
Jews or Irish simply because, like African-Americans, they were a
people of a darker color and thus, throughout the long brutal his-
tory of the Southwest, were deemed inferior by the racist white
majority. Indeed, who can deny the sometimes shameful exploits
of the Texas Rangers or the visceral contempt that the great south-
western cattle barons had for the Mexican menial laborer whom he
treated little better than his cows?

The problem with the accepted dogma is not that it

is entirely false—thousands of racist writings and years of
official biased protocol can indeed be used to substantiate such
a view—but that it is only a partial explanation for Mexican dis-
appointments, and in any case it belongs largely to the past. If
only skin color can ensure entrée into American society, how have
Arabs, Koreans, Armenians and Japanese found parity with, and
in many cases economic superiority over, the traditional white
majority? Jet-black Punjabis, for example, are prominent in the
professions of central California—medicine, law, agribusiness and
academia—oblivious to the fact that their hue is often darker than
that of African-Americans. Asians have a higher per capita income
than California whites.

Thus the challenge is not to identify racism, but to assess the

degree to which it or its legacy can affect a people today. Punjabis historically
have not always been treated nicely in America, but they come
from thousands of miles across a wide ocean with identifiable
skills, close family networks, some English proficiency, a willing-
ness to learn more, and a tradition of entrepreneurship, all of
which seem to make race irrelevant. In fact, their ebony children
who attend elite universities are not eligible for affirmative action.
If anything, the University of California subtly and off the record
looks askance at their overrepresentation—and this is an institu-
tion that already has been publicly rebuked for using de facto
quotas in turning away qualified Asians from its Berkeley campus.
Californians are increasingly cynical and sense that affirmative