MEXIFORNIA - A STATE OF BECOMING

MEXIFORNIA Victor Davis Hanson

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