If you don't think the Mexican laborers in agriculture worked hard, you've never been out there in the fields during harvest, as I have. As Hanson apparently does, I have great empathy for the poor, undeducated, hard-working and vulnerable Mexican workers. They're coming up from a horrid situation in Mexico, truly the third world, and trying to get by for themselves and their families.
And, the truth is, for many years, and probably still, Mexicans ARE discriminated against in California for many reasons. The average Californian of 30 years ago saw Mexicans as very different: dark, often Indian or mestizo, very poor, and deeply ignorant, especially of the modern world. Most people thought they were stupid, and in school, the teachers expected little from the Mexican kids. In my schools, from elementary through high school, they were the thugs and the only ones who had 'gangs' -- we called them 'chooks' , a variant of the Pachucho from the '40s, made famous by Zoot Suit. Mostly they dropped out of high school and went to work.
Thiry years ago, when i was in graduate school in California, all of the Mexican activism and La Raza nonsense was just beginning. Despite coming from a major wine family, through some serendipitous circumstances I knew a number of the Chicano activists fairly well, and had a good relationship with them. Most of the early activists were bright, early affirmative action admits to the University of California system. Most of them were thorougly unprepared for the University workload. And many of them had grown up being treated like dirt in the small towns of the Valley and the barios of Los Angelese. So they were frustrated and angry, mostly for pretty good reasons. The outlet, due to the prevailing marxism I think, turned into Mexican nationalism, chauvinism really, and typical anti-Gringo anti-Americanism. I completely disagree with the path the Chicano activits took, and find it completely unacceptable, but understand these people had a real anger and grievances.
All of that said, I have no use for the Mexicanization of California -- it's part of the reason I don't live in California anymore. If I were able, I would boot every last illegal out of the state, and start letting people in on the understanding they had five years to assimilate, learn English, support themselves, and become citizens, or they're out permanently.
While very unattractive among the lower classes who are in America, this attitude is also prevalent, IMHO, among educated Mexicans in Mexico. They seem to be doing some sort of French intellectual thing.
Mexicans are, I have found, incredibly chauvinistic and very intolerant of other Latin Americans, who heartily return the favor. If poor or non-white Mexicans, resident in the US, think they are being treated badly here, they have forgotten the crude intolerance and vicious class structure of their own land.
They're here, legal or illegal, because we are a better deal. But starting your life in a new land with an illegal act is hardly a good idea.