MEXIFORNIA Victor Davis Hanson 34

MEXIFORNIA Victor Davis Hanson 35

oncologist and chemotherapist, quite another to endure a growing

tumor in central Mexico. Professors of Chicano studies here fret

about the loss of Spanish, the rising rates of intermarriage and the

steady erosion of a �śChicano identity”; yet none wish to replenish

their roots by moving their families to rural Mexico and a world of

untreated sewage, parasite-infested water and herbalists standing in

for cardiologists.

The more sober observers of all races know that if Mexico

were separated from the border by a hundred miles of ocean, the

so-called minority problem in California would vanish within a

generation or two. As it now stands, the constant stream of new

arrivals means that for each assimilated Mexican, there are always

several more who are not. Unlike Southeast Asians, who came all

at once to California and from thousands of miles away follow-

ing the disaster in Vietnam, Mexicans have had no opportunity

to mature together and slowly evolve as a distinct cohort into

Americans.

In fact, the opposite is true. An Italian or a Jew knew that if

he did not learn English and the American system, he was going to

be left behind as his peers pressed ahead. A Mexican in California

senses that if he fails to integrate into mainstream American soci-

ety, there will always be thousands more newcomers like himself

who will know almost nothing about the United States, and thus

by sheer numbers join him in a viable expatriate culture. A Pole

once accepted that she would perpetually stumble through the

Cleveland phone book if she kept speaking Polish; a Mexican

accepts as a given that Pacific Bell will double the size of its direc-

tory assistance just to accommodate her Spanish.

Race

Race�"could it be any other way in contemporary America?�"is

often cited as the most critical issue blocking the aspirations of

Hispanics. The standard doctrine, promulgated by university eth-

nic studies departments, is well known: Mexicans were never able