MEXIFORNIA Victor Davis Hanson 149

the education, affluence and perhaps memories to support the

local family-owned grocery and the town’s beleaguered lumber

store. The former are cheap, always open, and more likely to offer

help in Spanish; the latter are discriminating, prefer quality to

quantity, and may hold forth on the problems in the community as

you purchase a can of paint.

We are at the last frontier of cultural democratization and

limitless mass production, where for the first time in history,

entertainment, fashion and media are economical, understandable,

reachable and apparently enjoyed by everyoneâ€"regardless of race,

age or gender. Whether this plethora of cheap goods and boorish

entertainment derives from the labors of one billion Chinese who

are now exporting their wares on the world market, or the ability

to send satellite signals and the Internet into Amazon villages is

unclear. What is indisputable is that the drudgery of the American

workplaceâ€"forty full hours each week, with few European-style

perks, and dismal wages for the uneducatedâ€"is ameliorated by

cheap electronic goods, cheap clothes, cheap almost everything,

spiced with sounds, images and tastes that are uniformly acces-

sible and unifying. Europeans who drive their safe government cars

to the beach, work seven hours a day, enjoy six to eight weeks off

yearly, and have nearly all their medical problems, tuition, natal

care and rest home worries taken care of by a maternal government

see us as impoverished. Yet Americans find Europeans’ tiny homes,

solitary small cars, single televisions, and outrageously expensive

food, clothes, entertainment and gasoline a real poverty that

restricts the individual’s ability to satisfy his cravings.

I used to roll my eyes when my parents turned on Perry

Como and Frank Sinatra; today my children and I listen to Moby.

My father and mother once complained that our clothes were

too raggedy; our children now are likely to be dressed like us.

My grandmother wore a pleated skirt and my grandfather wore

railroad bib overalls; today my daughter and son wear each other’s

flannel shirts with unisex denim cutoffs, sometimes pilfered from