MEXIFORNIA Victor Davis Hanson 155 E P I L O G U E Forks in the Road THE POOR OF THE WORLD are voting with their feet. Europe is awash with immigrants from northern Africa and the Middle East who now make up vast enclaves in England, Scandinavia and France. African blacks flock into a once racist South Africa still replete with tough and hate- ful Afrikaners. Refugees from a torrid Arabian landscape wait on lists to get into frosty Toronto. Hundreds of thousands of times more workers leave Palestine to find work in a despised Israel than Israelis—or Palestinians—venture into Syria or Lebanon. The freedom and material dynamism of the West are drawing millions to its shores—in the manner that Athens once attracted metics from Asia, and Rome drew Africans, Jews and Armenians. And just as in that distant past, today’s new arrivals are unsure to what degree they wish to shed their old culture, language and customs. Most are confused over why they have abandoned countries they are unhappy with and yet find themselves uneasy with those they have chosen to embrace. If Californians complain that the children of aliens claim they are Mexicans, not Americans, and cheer visiting Mexican soccer players while booing their American athletes, they should remember that Algerians do the same thing to their hosts in France, as Pakistanis often do in Great Britain, and as Turks in Germany. The freedom and affluence of the West affect both the poor Third World immigrant and the well-heeled Western host in a variety of strange ways. Americans and Europeans can develop a cynicism, boredom and smugness about their own soft society that suggests to perceptive aliens either a sense of outright self-loath- ing or at least an uneasy acceptance that patriotism, pride in one’s culture and national solidarity have no place in a postmodern,