Scholar Victor Davis Hanson's essay on immigration in the new issue of Hillsdale College's Imprimis is full of insight.
Since roughly 1970, the evolving concept of multiculturalism—which holds that Western civilization merits no special consideration, inasmuch as all cultures are of equal merit—has proved to be the force-multiplier of illegal immigration from Mexico. By denying or deprecating the singularity of democracy, capitalism, the rule of law, civic audit and religious freedom, multiculturalism confuses both native Americans and immigrants about why people are leaving Mexico in droves in the first place, and in the second, why they are heading northward rather than southward into Central or South America. Rather than explaining reality, this new ideology emphasizes racial prejudice and economic exploitation in America’s past—a topic of increasing interest to comfortable elites, but apparently not seen as an obstacle by the millions of poor and impoverished Mexicans who risk their lives daily to reach the American promised land.Almost every well-intended and enlightened gesture designed to help immigrants over the last three decades—bilingual education, ever expanding and new state welfare programs, the affirmation of a hyphenated identity and the radical historical revisionism of southwestern American history—has been detrimental to the processes of assimilation and economic improvement. Almost everything stern and uncompromising that for two centuries has helped other immigrants to the United States—entry under legal auspices, language immersion, autonomy from government assistance, rapid assumption of an American identity and eager acceptance of mainstream American culture—has either been dismissed as passé or carried on halfheartedly.
Most Californians of all backgrounds understand the growing social and cultural costs that flow from this situation. Yet the Orwellian alliance of many libertarian-leaning conservatives—who embrace the idea of a perpetual supply of hard-working, unskilled and inexpensive workers—with the race industry of the Left—which envisions an endless influx of unassimilated potential voters who can be appealed to on the basis of group rather than individual identity—tends to demonize any discussion of the issue. Opposition to massive illegal immigration is customarily and cleverly equated with disdain for immigration per se, hence characterized as un-American. Given the demagoguery of our elected state representatives and the general hostility to frank talk about illegal immigration, ballot propositions led by unelected partisans and enacted through popular vote, rather than through legislative debate, have become the chief mechanisms of addressing this issue. Embittered Californians give tacit approval to therapeutic bromides in their schools and state agencies—and then flock to the polls to vent their rage by voting to end what they see as special consideration for those who broke the law in coming here. In the last decade, California majorities have voted against state aid to illegal immigrants, affirmative action and bilingual education, but far fewer than a majority will admit to taking part. It is not a healthy thing to have a voting population of millions thinking privately what they won’t express publicly.
Dr. Hanson has the advantage of being a California native who is living in an area currently being transformed by Mexican immigration -- he's a first-hand witness, sympathetic and keen-eyed. His recent book Mexifornia: A State of Becoming sounds valuable.
Posted by Alan at November 24, 2003 11:36 AM