The future of California
By Roger Fontaine
Consider California. If it were an independent country, its size, population, economy and natural resources would place it well within the 10 most powerful nations on earth. And yet, its current economic and political woesremindusof,say, Venezuela.
The economy is once again stalled, investors are fleeing, a governor is about to be removed from office and his successor may well win the post with a percentage of the electorate no higher than the incumbent's current approval rating. And somehow, Gov. Gray Davis' successor must lead a politically polarized state hellbent on self-destruction.
If that were not enough, consider the kind of problems Victor Davis Hanson poses in "Mexifornia: A State of Becoming." They are by no means trivial, but may well get lost in the current malaise about budget, taxes and soaring state government expenditures. He writes as a fifth generation Californian who himself has worked the land in the Central Valley. Those of us with only first generation California credentials ought to listen.
The author, a well-known historian and classical scholar, sees his state in demographic flux with a population rapidly changing and becoming ever more Mexican. Still, this is no mere nativist fear mongering.
Professor and farmer Hanson (Thomas Jefferson would have loved him), like many other long-term California residents, has a family of highly mixed origins: Mexican, Swedish, Asian and so on. The charge of prejudice, he not so subtly suggests, holds no water. Nor is he about to advocate putting up a big fence on the frontier manned by the California National Guard.
Mr. Hanson reminds Anglo-Californians how dependent they are on Mexican and Mexican-American labor — from maids to fruit pickers — that take few jobs others want. Anyone who has spent so much as an afternoon doing stoop labor in the hot sun knows exactly what he is talking about.
The author also makes clear that immigration itself can be a good thing. That is especially so when immigrants come here, work hard and assimilate their new country's political ethos. The problem? Less and less of that is happening in California and Mr. Hanson makes a good case for worry.
The causes are multiple and some may not have a remedy. For example, he argues that earlier waves of migrants — Asian and European — came to America, and for better or worse, knew they could not return home even if they wanted to. But recent Mexican migrants know they can always return to Mexico — an easy bus ride for most — and if they are successful they can return to their impoverished village and live well in familiar surroundings. Why stick around and deal with the maze of rules and regulations that lead to U.S. citizenship?
But Mr. Hanson suggests more is at work and Californians themselves are to blame. Foremost, is a loose collection of individuals and institutions that no longer believe in assimilation in the way earlier generations of immigrants experienced. That includes everything, the author says, from the crazies who favor establishing an independent Hispanic nation out of the American Southwest to those who push a so-called Chicano agenda, including bilingual education.
On each Mr. Hanson has much to say and most of it is deadly accurate. For example, college degrees in Chicano studies and bilingualeducationlead nowhere. Not only do they undercut the goals of assimilation (which does not mean sameness), they penalize young Mexican Americans, providing them with second-rate educations that in turn lead to dead-end jobs and mounting frustration.
In turn, all this will have an impact on California's economy. My guess is that it already has. The good news is that this is beginning to sink in. Most polls show that Mexican American parents know perfectly well that bilingual education has failed to serve their children's needs. They want them to read, speak and write good English in order to have better lives here. What they don't want is to seem less American because they take pride in their Spanish culture — as some clumsy (mostly Republican) Anglos too often imply.
Well, is California's fate to become a Third World society? Quien sabe? The state's largely Anglo politicians are doing a good job of it all by themselves. But Mr. Hanson raises some serious issues that need to be addressed. Some can hardly be dealt with. Mexico, for the foreseeable future, will remain well behind the United States in its prosperity and civic decency and, California will continue to be a powerful magnet, attracting especially the poor and ambitious.
Roger Fontaine was a member of the National Security Council staff during the first Reagan administration. |
