Mexifornia: A State Of Becoming (2004) - Plot & Excerpts
Actually read in June of 2009. The following is a summary of notes (or review) written at the time that I am moving to my Goodreads library. Mexifornia is a very short book, but even though it weighs in at only 150 pages it is one of the most lucid and accurate descriptions of the immigration quagmire we presently face here in California. It is an extended essay without all of usual academic footnotes and citations you would expect from an academic, and written mostly from personal experience. Victor Davis Hanson is a prolific writer on the topics of history and politics. His writings appear in several publications including major newspapers, National Review, the Weekly Standard, and many others. I have also been reading his occasional essays in the Claremont Review of Books. Hanson has spent much of his life as a farmer, and a professor of classics. For many years he taught a classics program at California State University, Fresno and has held positions as visiting professor at several other prestigious universities. He has also written many books on classical Greece and on modern politics. California’s disintegration has been happening at such a fast pace that much in Mexifornia seems slightly dated already. The book was originally published in 2003, but the revised second edition that I read was released in 2007. If anyone tells you that the book is “racist” or “extreme right wing” you should know that it is likely that they have not read this book. Hanson vents some of his frustration and anger over some personal experiences, but generally shows great sympathy for the millions of Mexicans who come to the U.S. looking for a better life. However, he does not shy away from discussion of the costs we pay for the high levels of illegal immigration, both culturally and financially.Hanson is highly critical of the Mexican government and groups like La Raza, portraying them as some of the worst fiends; the real users and abusers of the illegal immigrants. Here is part of his argument against the policies of the Mexican government:"Simply put, Mexican elites rely on immigration northward as a means of avoiding domestic reform. Market capitalism, constitutional government, the creation of a middle-class ethic or an independent judiciary will never fully come to Mexico as long as its potential critics go north instead of marching for a redress of grievances on the suited bureaucrats in Mexico City."Hanson has lived in California long enough to have seen the major shift in attitudes of illegal immigrants and academic elites. Part of this shift away from assimilation to multiculturalism and separatism has come about because of groups like La Raza, MEChA and MAPA. He accurately describes these groups as a major cause of the rejection of American values and culture by young Mexican immigrants. Many followers of these groups see themselves as victims of the racist U.S. system and believe that California was stolen from Mexico. They demand recompense for all of these injustices. They unfortunately reject the assimilation that has worked well for many ethnic groups in the past (including Mexicans). The personal family stories of old-fashioned melting pot assimilation that Hanson describes in Mexifornia are not unlike my own, or those of millions of other families who have assimilated.The solution offered in Mexifornia seems so simple that it will probably continue to be ignored: less illegal immigration and a return to the principles of assimilation. Those who come here legally will not have to hide, can work at becoming U.S. citizens, and within the next generation, their children will only describe themselves as Americans. Is there something wrong with that? Will those on the political left (and some on the right) not allow these people to become patriotic citizens, rather than breaking their backs for a lifetime hiding from authorities, taxes and a more genuine freedom?
Victor Davis Hanson offers a short, semi-autobiographical assessment of the state of immigration issues/challenges in his home state, California. Hanson is a fourth-generation farmer, writer (http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/), classicist formerly on the faculty of Fresno State, and current fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institute, who brings all of those skills to bear upon the vexing conundrum of immigration, particularly looking at how Mexican immigrants are uniquely shaping California's culture.His book moves between several important poles-a veteran fruit farmer that has interacted for decades with working class immigrants (legal and illegal); a sympathetic neighbor that regularly sees the cost of non-engagement of broader American culture by a percentage of more recent immigrants; a skeptical professor at a public university that suspects that immigration has become a weapon for university's ideology of race, ethnicity and culture; and an historical wordsmith that appreciates the importance of seeing questions in view of historical precedent.Hanson surely gives pause on the rush to abandon patterns of immigrant integration that until very recently represented a central, controlling motif for thinking about immigration. Arguably, Mexican and Central American immigrants represent a newer challenge to that paradigm, but Hanson wonders persuasively whether the disengagement from an integrative approach to language (English), immigration process (ordered), educational standards (unapologetically high), etc. has not created perennial poverty and suffering. His is a sympathetic book, wanting his largely Hispanic town and area to thrive instead of continuously stumbling.He also does not hesitate to state facts that bear repeating. America's fruit is largely picked by those at the edges of functional society. If we reform immigration and seek to rightly manage immigrant flows, many Americans will not be willing to do the sort of work presently done by immigrants from our southern borders at their minimum wages. Costs will necessarily increase. Further, looking carefully at the welfare net that immigrants are immediately ushered into upon coming to the US is also needed. Would the removal or serious curtailing of those reshape how eager some are to come to America?Hanson is one of my favorite writers, his grasp of language, history, and culture is matched by few. This is a thoughtful, empathetic work of his.
What do You think about Mexifornia: A State Of Becoming (2004)?
I finally finished this book and was very impressed. It's not one you sit down for a rip-roaring bout of entertainment, but it was both thought-provoking and thoughtful. Hanson looks at the immigration problem from both sides and acknowledges how truly complex the situation is. I was particularly impressed about his arguments that one huge failing in our society now is the lack of civic education and our emphasis on education for skills. Hanson states, "If students are taught that the main purpose of education is to impart lucrative skills--profitable business acumen or accounting expertise--and that the accompanying good life will itself constitute the Good Life, it will be impossible to mold a generation that will welcome sacrifice or develop any common concern about the well-being of the less fortunate." Just look at how our financial markets are reeling from those concerned more with self-interest and greed than sacrifice as we face a mortgage and banking meltdown that affects the entire nation. He also addresses the lack of assimilation because of a stress on a multicultural society, instead of a multiracial society with a common culture. While I am still undecided where I stand in relationship to some of Hanson's arguments, it's probably the most honest and thoughtful commentary on the problem I have seen so far. I still think that the book suffers from his academic leanings in a few places (i.e. it can be dry at times), but I was impressed enough with the dialogue he's trying to start that I was willing to deal with it.Here's what I said when I wasn't ready to read it this summer--it still applies. I've only gotten a third of the way through the book, but I find it both fascinating and difficult. Hanson does a good job (so far) of showing both sides of the immigration debate in a sympathetic manner.My problem with the book is that it is obviously written by an academic. It's a bit dry and hard to follow his train of thought at times. I think it would reach a far wider audience if it weren't for that fact.I have to return it to the library, but I'll probably try again in a little bit--maybe after summer when my brain wants to work again.
—Shannon
This is a book that details the issue of immigration through the eyes of a white man who was born in this country. It details the perspective of a white man living among many Hispanics, but I do not see him feeling what they feel in their hearts. In reading this book, I felt as if I was listening into an argument across the table between the author and some of his liberal colleagues at the university.Victor Davis Hanson has been described as a neoconservative by some commentators and was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush. A very recent article written by Hanson that appeared in the “National Review” was based on his feeling that “President Obama claims he inherited a mess in the Middle East. Not so”. You can see how very creative Hanson can get there.So I can see why he is often labeled as a neoconservative. A college professor from a California university, you may very well been expecting a liberal point of view on the immigration issue here. You are certainly not going to hear that here. He grew up on a family farm at Selma, California, in the San Joaquin Valley. His mother was a lawyer and judge, his father an educator and college administrator. I do not remember him acknowledging this in his book. He makes it sound as if they were rather poor. He seems to be somewhat lacking in empathy towards the illegal aliens that surround him in California’s Central Valley. He has a “Pull yourselves up by the bootstraps mentality”. He writes from many personal experiences, things that he himself has witnessed. He describes the dysfunctional policies of the California State Government and the US government in dealing with and in encouraging the disenfranchisement over the Mexican- American people. He deconstructs the damaging polices in a very effective way.I seem to hear him describing life as he thinks that it ought to be – a wishful thinking that if everyone today gets on board on his old fashioned values wagon- than everything will be alright.Although this man has lived beside the people he describes, he really does not seem to be speaking for them. He seems to be more concerned with supporting his own view of history and ideology.Many of his views I have heard before from people who describe themselves as “rednecks”, but Hanson does not come off here as a redneck. He knows when to tone down his rhetoric. He details many of his own personal complaints regarding the crushing wave of illegal immigrants on his hometown without sounding whiny. Now that is a rare talent.Corporate America, and the role that their constant lobbying to prevent progressive reconciliation through a smarter more progressive immigration policy is ignored here. Indeed, by barely mentioning corporate America’s role, Hanson seems to be giving them a free ride in his jeremiad.This book still makes for a good read as Mr. Hanson’s personal experiences really help you to see the reality of the illegal aliens painful existence once they get here, and how the American’s around them pay the price of these government policy shortcuts.
—Kenneth
'Victor Davis Hanson’s Mexifornia is the third best-seller on this immigration disaster in three years. (Hey! Maybe commercial publishers will—nah, fuhgeddaboutit.) In 2002, Michelle Malkin’s Invasion demonstrated that the U.S. admissions process was fundamentally flawed, regardless of what entry criteria were to be applied. In 2001, Patrick J. Buchanan’s Death of the West put U.S. immigration policy’s skew toward the Third World in the grand perspective of First World demographic and cultural decline.Mexifornia is a wonderful little book. It makes a distinctive contribution to the growing literature of immigration reform, which is inexorably eroding the ideological foundations of official immigration enthusiasm.'Read the full review, "Unnatural Disaster," on our website:http://www.theamericanconservative.co...
—The American Conservative
