Product Description

This book is part history, part political analysis and part memoir. It is an intensely personal book about what has changed in California over the last quarter century.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #190509 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-25
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 150 pages

Customer Reviews

Straight talk from a native Californian
"... this book is part melancholy remembrance of a world gone by, part detached analysis by a historian who knows well the treacherous sirens of romance and nostalgia, and part advocacy by a teacher who always wanted his students to be second to no one." - Author Victor Davis Hanson

Born in Fowler, CA and raised in the San Joaquin Valley town of Selma (2000 census 19,444), author Hanson is a raisin grape farmer and former classics professor at California State University, Fresno. He grew up in the early sixties in an environment incorporating a large Hispanic element. Friends and members of his extended family, including his twin brother, have married Hispanics. From this perspective, he's written MEXIFORNIA, a cogent and unsparing view of the current influx of (predominantly illegal) Mexican immigrants into California and the social stresses this population shift has caused.

Since Hanson's pointed opinions pierce the miasma of political correctness that exudes from the mainstream media and local and state political hacks, I shall be quoting him extensively. Please bear with me; if I can convince you with a sampling of his prose that MEXIFORNIA is worth purchasing and reading, then my approach to the review and my award of five stars are justified.

First off, let's lay one thing on the table. Hanson refers to those who've crossed over from our southern neighbor by routes not established by law as ILLEGALS. Nowhere in this book does the term UNDOCUMENTED appear. If this offends the politically correct, then such should not read this book as they may well wring their hands and rend their garments. Personally, I love his refreshing candor.

On the dream of those who come:

"The dream of the young worker ... is that he might earn money as a Mexican in America and then go home to live like an American in Mexico."

On the ultimate realizations of those who come:

"You can have ten times what you had in Mexico, but still be miserable that you have one-tenth what others in America do ... How soon one metamorphoses from being a guest grateful for the privilege of having plentiful, clean food to being churlish because his house lacks central air conditioning cannot be calculated exactly; but the divide between appreciation and resentment is not wide ... most aliens from Mexico, despite their hard work, will never in their lifetimes enjoy the lifestyle that most of us Americans have ... they will still pick and scrub while we do not, and for them that makes all the difference in the world."

On the relativity of prosperity for those who come:

"A man alone may be wealthy at even $10 an hour; he is an utter pauper at the same wage with a pregnant wife, two children in diapers, and a three-bedroom apartment with a clunky car in the stall and one in worse condition on blocks ...The greatest hazard to the illegal immigrant is a large family - the truth that is never mentioned, much less discussed."

Touching on the American's perception of the unfairness of the incoming exodus:

"One of the most fascinating aspects of the entire immigration fiasco is the unspoken logic of creating an alternate universe for the illegal alien, in which our long-honored rules and statutes do not apply - a separate code of frontier jurisprudence for millions who, ipso facto, have broken the old law by their unlawful entry into America."

On the assimilation-promoting education that he and his Hispanic classmates received in the 1960s:

"If the purpose of such an education system as the one that formed us was to turn out true Americans of every hue, and to instill in them a love of their country and a sense of personal possibility, then the evidence forty years later would say that it was an unquestionable success."

Conversely, on the pro-separatist ideologies and teaching philosophies of today:

"If 'white' California is to be blamed for anything, it is for creating fiefdoms for hundreds of professors in the race business to fabricate classes and methods of instruction that impart almost none of the useful cultural information desperately needed by an alien seeking to prosper in America. If there is a truly lingering racism in California, then one need go no further than the state universities, where so much money and power has been handed over to an elite class of racialists who in turn have created a curriculum designed to guarantee failure for the children of immigrants ... Thus, each time a university president, a small-time politician on the make, or a bien pensant liberal journalist chooses the easy path of separatism, he does a little part in turning us toward Rwanda or Yugoslavia."

And, on the Hispanic "race-hustlers" who seek to capitalize on perceived victimhood:

"In some sense, he is related to the Irish ward boss, the Polish precinct worker and the Italian borough master of former times ... he shares a nineteenth-century vision of enormous ethnic blocks, entire unassimilated, with tough burly capos like himself riding to prominence at their head ... The chief fear of the race manipulator? That unchecked immigration may cease; that his minions may learn to read and write English with ease; that his brother or sister may marry 'the other'; that a Mexican middle class might flourish in private enterprise apart from government service or entitlements ..."

What Hanson has accomplished in his 150-page MEXIFORNIA is to express what so many with power and influence dare not say for fear of being branded politically incorrect or, at worst, racist. Whether you agree with the author's conclusions or not, the book, if read, has the potential to stimulate useful discussion on an incredibly thorny and intractable issue.

A Must Read About Illegal Immigrants
Victor Davis Hanson presents a compelling story of what is happening in California as huge numbers of illegal immigrants flood the state bringing changes that are truly disturbing.

tired...
the first 50 pages were OK but downhill from there.
these are the tired rantings of a liberal who now realizes the failings of that mindset... but now it's too late. the author seems to think that picking grapes is some sort of noble undertaking and that manual labor is superior to his real job--- college professor.
now that the predictable chickens have come home to roost (mexican invasion, more welfare for illegal immigrants and overloaded hospitals full of thirld-worlders, he is SHOCKED!!SHOCKED!! that there is gambling going on at Ricks in Casablanca...
mediocre bathroom reading at best.