'Mexifornia': a hurtful guide to Mexican history

The Fresno Bee ^ | 9/6/03 | Paul A Garcia

[UncleDick]

It is not an enduring piece of literature that touts universal truths and offers perennial wisdom. Instead, it is classic in the repetition of antiquated, racist arguments for preserving a melting pot national identity.

It is a journalistic account of manufactured threats posed by illegal Mexican immigrants to United States citizens. Through personal experiences, anecdotal evidence and literally junk, Hanson offers a superficial and non-academic presentation of illegal Mexican immigrants "deprecating the place that alone gave them sanctuary."

[UncleDick]

If Mr. Garcia is representative of most former vice principals, our public education system is indeed in dire straits.

I love how the term "illegal aliens" is deemed nontechnical and inflammatory. Perhaps Mr. Garcia would prefer "wetbacks?"

[No_Outcome_But_Victory]

Well, if they can't argue with the facts, cry racist, as usual...

[junta]

Mr. Garcia in a backhanded way summed up the destructive forces of mass immigration.

[Lazamataz]

Dismissed are valuable contributions made by Mexican immigrants to the harvest of crops, as a source of cheap, unskilled labor and taxpaying community members.

Dismissed are the harmful effects of Illegal Aliens to the infrastructure of California, the taking of American jobs by American citizens desperate for those jobs, and the proclivity of illegal aliens to illegally vote.

Hanson's use of the nontechnical and inflammatory term "illegal aliens" provokes hatred and contempt.

Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien. Illegal Alien.

I will never stop using that term, Senorita Garcia.

I will actually now start using that term to refer to legal immigrants.

To me -- because of you, alone -- they are *ALL* illegal aliens.

[gaspar]

The author decries the fact that Hanson is not a cultural anthropologist or sociologist. To which I reply, Thank God! Two more intellectually impoverished degrees have not been invented.

[demlosers]

[boris]

I just went to Amazon and ordered 2 copies!

[Noumenon]

Well, if they can't argue with the facts, cry racist, as usual...

I've just read this book, and as former Californian, I'd have to say that Hanson is right on the money. 'Hurtful,' indeed. Truth hurts. Racist liberal whiners can't offer a single countervailing argument to anything that Hanson has said.

[Noumenon]

It's well worth your time. Enjoy. HAnson, as always, is a model of clarity and perception.

[umgud]

Mexifornia is inevitable. If immigration, legal and illegal, stopped tomorrow, current demographics still guarantee this. California's fate is sealed.

If California had not been ceded to the USA in 1848, but remained part of Mexico, would its inhabitants have been any better off?

When Mexicans do take over California, can someone please tell how or why they will be able to run things better here than they have in Mexico? (not meaning this as a racial slur)

[boris]

Read THIS.

--Boris

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

Yet Hanson is not a cultural anthropologist capable of reconstructing events based on artifacts, a criminologist knowledgeable about deviant minds and behavior nor a sociologist cognizant that social problems are defined as much by politics as by inherent qualities or acts.

This is all I have to hear to know that Garcia is a pretentious numbskull.

I’m beginning to wonder if all those historically evil book burnings the academics cry over that took place in many reaches of the globe actually were not a blessing. So much crap is written by so-called intellectuals that the ordinary person has to clear the air every so often. Garcia is in the class of stupid people pretending to know better than the rest. He is a first class collectivist. His news writings should be subjected to a mass burning on the doorsteps of his favorite collectivist cause witnessed by a really pissed off mob of individuals heating up the tar pots looking for collectivists to feather.

[FITZ]

Mr. Garcia in a backhanded way summed up the destructive forces of mass immigration.

Exactly. He is against assilation, against the "melting pot", he is for this diversification --- but he doesn't even explain why it's better for the USA to become more like Mexico. Garcia needs to go to Mexico and see why that country ---- with all it's wealth and vast natural resources looks so very different from the USA.

[Greybird]

According to Hanson, Mexican immigrants disdain assimilation; are stubbornly tied to their home language and culture; and exhibit no effort to negotiate learning a second language, different relating styles or financial obligations.

I could make an equally anecdotal counter to Hanson by citing what is running on any one of a dozen Spanish-language cable stations in L.A. at any time of the day or night, seven days a week: an infomercial about one of several courses on tape or CD for rapidly learning English.

(This insomniac channel surfer runs across them constantly, by the way. Some are quite innovative, even using phonics to teach English in terms of transliterated Spanish letter sounds. More phonics than most kids get in the government schools.)

The mass bovine stupidity Hanson credits to Mexican immigrants -- documented and not -- does not exist. (He confuses it with a simple case of exhaustion from manual labor. Any Anglo production-line stiff could say the same.) Neither does a universal entrepreneurial spirit, true enough -- though Anglos don't have it, either.

Nonetheless, Hanson's book shouldn't be dismissed just because it's not from the pen of a "sociologist." Many other good reasons exist to do so, such as his faulty arguments-by-analogy and his terminally condescending attitude, which gets in the way of his objectivity. He's as detestable as Michael Moore -- just more refined in rhetoric, that's all.

[FITZ]

When Mexicans do take over California, can someone please tell how or why they will be able to run things better here than they have in Mexico? (not meaning this as a racial slur)

They'll replace people like Dornan with ones like Sanchez and there won't be governors like Reagan ever again but ones like Davis and Bustamante. They want to keep their culture --- but it's because of their culture (not their race) that Mexico looks like it does.

When the Revolution breaks out in Mexico, it's going to be going on in California too.

[UncleDick]

You should visit the San Joaquin Valley one of these days, walk around any city (especially downtown) and then tell me that Mexican immigrants are assimilating.

[Psycho_Bunny]

I haven't read this particular book by Mr. Hanson but, if it's anything like his previous works, this Garcia fellow is totally out of his league.

Victor Davis Hanson is a true scholar.

[FITZ]

by citing what is running on any one of a dozen Spanish-language cable stations in L.A. at any time of the day or night, seven days a week: an infomercial about one of several courses on tape or CD for rapidly learning English.

That's some irony --- you don't rapidly learn English if you're watching one of a dozen Spanish language stations. Those tapes don't work, immersion works --- but there are areas of this country where English is not much spoken ---immersion would be difficult. In this region one third the population speaks no English --- but only one fourth were born in Mexico.

[twas]

What you need to understand about the difference between Mexico and the United States is that the US is a MAGICAL landmass where everything wonderful MAGICALLY happens.

It's not the people who make the difference, it's just the space.

Put anyone on the landmass of the United States and you'll get the same MAGICAL results!

At least that's the arguement for mass "migration".