Summary Of Mexifornia By Victor Hanson

In the early twenty-first century, there was a continued concern on immigration in the United States that focused primarily on the immigration of Mexicans across the border into the U.S., especially California. Already many white native Californians began to notice a change in the surrounding culture as more Mexican immigrants entered the country. This change inspired many to express their thoughts on this transition of culture and society, including Victor Hanson, author of “Mexifornia.” Hanson speaks from his own experience as a farmer in Selma, California, dealing with whether Mexican immigrants are a racial group attempting to maintain their own identity within American culture or a people striving to assimilate and blend into American

Society.

Analyzing the complex topic in the first part of his book, Hanson begins by questioning what makes Mexican immigrants different from the other various peoples and cultures that have immigrated to the United States and what has caused recent Mexicans immigrant resistance to assimilation into mainstream U.S.

culture. Hanson explains that the complexity of the issue comes from the proximity of Mexico to America, government troubles, race problems and a confused sense of chauvinism for Mexico. Despite the multiple components to the issue addressed by Hanson, the essay does not persuade the reader to believe Mexican assimilation into American culture is the simple solution to the problem of immigration as he claims. Hanson argues that previous immigrant groups have successfully integrated into American culture but the Mexican immigrant resistance to do so has meant this latest wave of immigration is a negative influence on the country. At its heart, this is a racist argument, blaming the inevitable influx of Mexican people into the U.S. due to economic forces on their language and culture and an unwillingness to become

“American.”

Regardless of the racist motives behind Hanson’s argument, his reasoning presented is very persuasive for his audience. He does this by finding somewhere to place the blame and allowing Americans to avoid any responsibility for the problem. In one section of his essay, Hanson describes the trouble with the government in Mexico, explaining this corrupted government is a cause for Mexicans to be driven into America. Hanson continues by turning the Mexican government into a scapegoat for the fault with immigration. There is a great appeal for many Americans in painting Mexico's government as a dirty, dishonest, lazy entity. In doing this, it takes away all responsibility from Americans and the American government, instead of painting America as the victim and leaving it to Mexico to fix their government in order to solve the immigration issues.

Despite the appeal of Hanson’s reasoning, it is not sound and lacks true proof through his broad claims. Hanson contends that if Mexico were to take the time for “domestic reforms,” Mexican citizens would stop their move northward and be willing to stay in a place that would be free of class divides and inequality. Giving a vague solution to the “corruption” of Mexico he fails to even fully explain, Hanson’s cure to the ‘problem,’ is not a viable solution. Wide-ranging terms such as corruption and reforms appear convincing on the surface yet have no true merit or ability to work in reality. Without clearly identified problems there can be no easy answer as a quick fix.

However, Hanson’s argument does display a few more strong claims, including why assimilation should be enforced and how it can benefit Mexican immigrants, by using past immigrant groups to support his conclusions. His examples describe Punjabis, who have struggled with life in America as a different race and culture yet have learned English proficiency and have created skills to assist America. Hanson also uses Koreans as an example, who Hanson says is “just as ‘white’ as Mexicans” yet have been able to adopt the same values held in America (25). In contrasting these two groups and others with Mexican immigrants, Hanson paints the Mexican immigrants as a stubborn group that chose to refuse to adapt to the superior culture. He outlines simply that by assimilating, these groups have become a part of American society and are no longer identified as “people of color,” resulting in the argument that if Mexicans did the same, a solution could be found.

Hanson again finds a scapegoat, this time the Mexican people, stating it is not even a situation of racism but rather due to the other races that have become “white” in their culture while recent Mexican immigrants have not.

All the problems associated with immigration, Hanson argues, can be blamed upon their resistance to adapt to American ideals, culture and the English language; again a compelling argument that leaves America and assimilated Americans blameless. Hanson’s simplistic outline of how those in the past have assimilated is persuasive yet the lack of details and exclusion of other economic factors put into question the validity of his point. His descriptions of other immigrant groups are stereotypical and he uses broad brushstroke descriptions to describe more complicated situations. His perception is that all other immigrants have learned English and improved themselves culturally by assimilating. He consistently looks down upon Mexican immigrant’s attempt to maintain their own culture and language without clearly linking it to the poverty and crime he complains

about.

Additionally despite Hanson’s use of the past as an example, each culture is different, and some cultures he mentions may have assimilated fully yet others such as Mexican immigrants could have a multitude of reasons for being unable to assimilate; the incompatibility of their culture with America or the ability to only assimilate to a certain point in order to still maintain their identity and who they are as people. Another possibility is that Mexican immigrants are assimilating, just at a pace that we do not recognize being so close to it. It is also true that Mexican culture is changing American culture. But that has been true of other waves of immigration as well. As other European, Latin American and Asian immigrants have come to the U.S. they have assimilated but also contributed their culture to America and so changed American Culture. Hanson makes the mistake of thinking that American Culture is monolithic and unchanging and should stay the way it is. The truth is that American Culture has always been changing and developing with new influxes of immigrants.