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| Home Front: Politix |
| VDH : Mexifornia, Five Years Later |
| 2007-02-08 |
| The flood of illegal immigrants into California has made things worse than I foresaw. In the Spring 2002 issue of City Journal, I wrote an essay about growing up in the central San Joaquin Valley and witnessing firsthand, especially over the last 20 years, the ill effects of illegal immigration (City Journal’s editors chose the title of the piece: “Do We Want Mexifornia?”). Controversy over my blunt assessment of the disaster of illegal immigration from Mexico led to an expanded memoir, Mexifornia, published the following year by Encounter Press. Mexifornia came out during the ultimately successful campaign to recall California governor Gray Davis in autumn 2003. A popular public gripe was that the embattled governor had appeased both employers and the more radical Hispanic politicians of the California legislature on illegal immigration. And indeed Davis had signed legislation allowing driver’s licenses for illegal aliens that both houses of state government had passed. So it was no wonder that the book sometimes found its way into both the low and high forms of the political debate. On the Internet, a close facsimile of a California driver’s license circulated, with a picture of a Mexican bandit (the gifted actor Alfonso Bedoya of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre), together with a demeaning height (5’4”), weight (“too much”), and sex (“mucho”) given. “Mexifornia” was emblazoned across the top where “California” usually is stamped on the license. In such a polarized climate, heated debates and several radio interviews followed, often with the query, “Why did you have to write this book?” The Left saw the book’s arguments and its title—Mexifornia was originally a term of approbation used by activists buoyed by California’s changing demography—as unduly harsh to newcomers from Mexico. The Right saw the book as long-overdue attention to a scandal ignored by the mainstream Republican Party. |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |
| #13 Mexico has a population of 109M. If 11M are here, then VDH is correct, about 10% of the Mexican nationals are in the USA. Now, let's say that half of the 109M, call it 55M, are of working age, and half of them are male. That's 27.5M. If 60% of the illegals are men, that's 6.6M. Thus perhaps 6.6/27.5 or 24% of the men in Mexico are working illegally in the USA? Is it possible? If these guesses are too conservative, is the percentage perhaps even higher? |
| Posted by: KBK 2007-02-08 23:38 |
| #12 darn it, I meant to type - Procopius2k. |
| Posted by: Broadhead6 2007-02-08 22:21 |
| #11 Well said Precopius2k. First we need the fence. Then we need a sign on it that says "NO VACANCY" |
| Posted by: Broadhead6 2007-02-08 22:19 |
| #10 LH falls short again in a discussion he does not suffer the consequences of failing. Poseur |
| Posted by: Frank G 2007-02-08 21:30 |
| #9 LH - Population of the US: 1860 - 31.4M 1890 - 62M 1920 - 106M 1970 - 203M 2007 - 300M est I think the need to fill the vast expanse has long past. So, tell me, do you occupy an abode, apartment, or home? Does it have a door? And on that door is there a lock? Why do people who insist on their own security expect other to give up theirs? Cause you know, down by the freeway there are homeless asking for food and shelter, so why do you deny them the opportunity by locking up your abode? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-02-08 20:43 |
| #8 Liberalhawk, your comparison to LittleItaly falls short. VDH covered that in the book Mexifornia. A century ago the immigrants took a one-way ticket to America and were encouraged to assimilate. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2007-02-08 15:08 |
| #7 Liberalhawk, your comparison to LittleItaly falls short. VDH covered that in the book Mexifornia. A century ago the immigrants took a one-way ticket to America and were encouraged to assimilate. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2007-02-08 15:02 |
| #6 "Most Americans felt that the formidable powers of integration and popular culture would continue to incorporate any distinctive ethnic enclave, as they had so successfully done with the past generations that arrived en masse from Europe, Asia, and Latin America." and steady, they have assimilated. " But when more than 10 million fled Mexico in little over a decade—the great majority poor, without English, job skills, a high school education, and legality—entire apartheid communities in the American Southwest began springing up." I suspect if Mr Hanson had been in Little Italy or the Lower East side in 1890, he would have seen the same thing. News for Mr Hanson - assimilation doesnt happen in an instant. It takes time. "During the heyday of multiculturalism and political correctness in the 1980s, the response of us, the hosts, to this novel challenge was not to insist upon the traditional assimilation of the newcomer but rather to accommodate the illegal alien with official Spanish-language documents, bilingual education, and ethnic boosterism in our media, politics, and education. These responses only encouraged more illegals to come, on the guarantee that their material life could be better and yet their culture unchanged in the United States." I see no evidence that the move away from bilingual education has impacted the immigration numbers. " We now see the results. Los Angeles is today the second-largest Mexican city in the world; one out of every ten Mexican nationals resides in the United States, the vast majority illegally." and where did Boston rank among Irish cities in 1860? "Since Mexifornia appeared, the debate also no longer splits along liberal/conservative, Republican/Democrat, or even white/brown fault lines. Instead, class considerations more often divide Americans on the issue. The majority of middle-class and poor whites, Asians, African-Americans, and Hispanics wish to close the borders. They see few advantages to cheap service labor, since they are not so likely to need it to mow their lawns, watch their kids, or clean their houses. Because the less well-off eat out less often, use hotels infrequently, and don’t periodically remodel their homes, the advantages to the economy of inexpensive, off-the-books illegal-alien labor again are not so apparent." Beginning to sound like John Edwards, which i guess is what happens when you take on the WSJ. A helluva lot of Americans who arent "fatcats" eat out fairly often (has Mr Hansen checked out the clientele at McDonalds lately?) or otherwise use immigrant labor. "But the downside surely is apparent. Truck drivers, carpenters, janitors, and gardeners— unlike lawyers, doctors, actors, writers, and professors—correctly feel that their jobs are threatened, or at least their wages lowered, by cheaper rival workers from Oaxaca or Jalisco. " and what happened to secretaries, computer technicians, small business people, farmers, and the rest of the middle class? Seems like Mr H shares Dem views that see only the elite and the blue collar working class. "And Americans who live in communities where thousands of illegal aliens have arrived en masse more likely lack the money to move when Spanish-speaking students flood the schools and gangs proliferate. Poorer Americans of all ethnic backgrounds take for granted that poverty provides no exemption from mastering English, so they wonder why the same is not true for incoming Mexican nationals." Census data shows Mexicans are learning english at the same rate or higher than late 19th cent euro immigrants. " Less than a mile from my home is a former farmhouse whose new owner moved in several stationary Winnebagos, propane tanks, and outdoor cooking facilities—and apparently four or five entire families rent such facilities right outside his back door. Dozens live where a single family used to—a common sight in rural California that reifies illegal immigration in a way that books and essays do not." Better than living in a tenement basement filled with multiple bunk beds, like so many on the Lower East side in the '90s. Look, theyre poor, and saving. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2007-02-08 14:08 |
| #5 "Of course, the ultimate solution to the illegal immigration debacle is for Mexican society to bring itself up to the levels of affluence found in the United States by embracing market reforms of the sort we have seen in South Korea, Taiwan, and China." To a considerable extent Mexico has done so, and its wage levels are rising. To the point that Mexico draws illegal migrants from central america who want to work in Mexico. But this takes a long time and is uneven across the country. NAFTA, which was a boost for Mexican manufacturing, and raised factory wages, by allowing freeer trade in US ag products hurt the poor farmers of the Mexicos south. While some of the those have moved to northern Mexico to get jobs there, once theyve left home many decide to head to the highest wage market on the continent, which is the US. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2007-02-08 13:59 |
| #4 "The result of such staggering numbers is that aliens now donÂ’t just cluster in the American Southwest but frequently appear at Home Depot parking lots in the Midwest, emergency rooms in New England, and construction sites in the Carolinas, making illegal immigration an American, rather than a mere Californian or Arizonan, concern." Where I live there are plenty of illegals. Few are mexicans, almost all are Salvadorans. If the problem is the cost to localities of providing services, etc than its a national problem. If the problem is the threat to US soveriengty as many alarmists make it out to be - well the Salvadorans dont want to be part of Mexicon, and there are too few of them to make my area part of El Salvador. The most emotional aspects of the problem are confined to mexicans, and theyre still much more concentrated on the SW border than illegals in general. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2007-02-08 13:55 |
| #3 Why isn't anything being done about all of this? In Colorado our mayor states that our biggest problem is homelessness, not even mentioning illegals or gangs etc. (even after the recent shooting of Darrent Williams) It seems like enough hard evidence is out there, that smart folks see that the short term gain financially is tearing our country apart now and worse into the future. To complain outloud say at work or socially, I have to guard my words so I'm not labeled a racist. It's very politically incorrect to say anything bad about illegals here in Colorado, especially Denver. The amount of services that are handed to them and that is expected is ridiculous. Also all of the punishment to the border patrol for doing their job and then getting beat up over it in jail. So not only is our homeland security a joke, we must be laughed at by everyone. I see many comparisons to Iraq with us not backing our military this just kills me. As with our guys doing their job and then having to go to court to defend their actions. I feel so helpless in getting anything done, that our elected officials aren't or won't (will't?) do anything about it. I feel I have to accept that I probably don't know about the many payoffs probably that folks are getting to not push through the proper legislation or act on it. To think that the driving force currently is money and not a better stronger America I'm just steamed/rant I need to go get some coffee and change my "latitude" |
| Posted by: Jan 2007-02-08 12:32 |
| #2 Let them waste their money, sounds win-win to me When 50% of their construction materials vanish, they'll think again. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2007-02-08 09:51 |
| #1 There are still Net reports going around that CHINA wants to contrux a super-port [sea + air] on the Mexico side of Baja, to rival anything in California or Texas, etc. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-02-08 02:18 |