MEXIFORNIA Victor Davis Hanson 142

government waning, but all the suppositions and pretensions of

the old cultureâ€"class considerations, racial prejudices, snobbery

of any sortâ€"are silenced as well by the high-decibel magnetism

of popular entertainment and its ferocious dumbing-down to the

level of easiest comprehension and acceptance. What a war the

new popular culture has inadvertently taken up through the pur-

suit of its own naked greedâ€"no less than an assault on the age-old

class, race and gender hierarchies that were previously thought to

be innate to, and unassailable within, the human condition!

Globalization can now unite any two people from the most

disparate backgrounds in taste, appearance and manner of daily

life. Humberto Gama, who lives down the road from me, has been

in the United States for twenty years. I am not sure of his legal

status, a topic never broached between us. He works occasional

jobsâ€"farm work and construction mostlyâ€"and is married with

three children. I still hear only Spanish waft across the vineyard

from his numerous parties and weekend festivities. He has filed

for workman’s compensation, been on welfare, received unemploy-

ment insuranceâ€"and worked on and off the entire time he has

been drawing his various subsidies; a global citizen, he assumes

that the spreading Western idea of entitlement can ameliorate the

occasional roughness of the marketplace. I have little idea what he

makes, but imagine it is under $30,000. He drives a 1991 Chevy

Astro van, which he bought used for about $3,000. It looks not

all that different from a $30,000 new model, and for purposes

of driving to town and back, it is just as serviceable. His sneakers,

jeans, T-shirts and hatâ€"off the rack from Kmart, Old Navy and

The Gapâ€"look no different from mine. He has no health insur-

ance, but then various state and federal programs and local clinics

seem to provide him with adequate care. To my knowledge he has

never forgone medical treatment for lack of funds, and he doesn’t

worry much about the pro forma bills that occasionally come from

the Selma hospitalâ€"an institution claiming to be millions of dol-

lars in the red each fiscal year. We forget that globalization is not