MEXIFORNIA Victor Davis Hanson 59

your children come home with notices from the local school advis-

ing you about free study halls, college scholarships and mental

health counseling�"along with a printed lecture from an ambi-

tious principal about his own proven commitment to �śdiversity”

and �śthe richness of a multicultural perspective”? Is there a chance

that being �śHispanic” in America bodes better for your children

than remaining an �śIndian” in Mexico? The finest universities of

Mexico do not scout out Indians from Oaxaca to redress historic

imbalances in their enrollment; America’s Ivy League does.

No, the immigrant senses that�"whether out of altruism,

guilt or coercion�"the crazy gringos in America treat him bet-

ter than his beloved amigos in Mexico. So it is harder than one

expects to cut this new umbilical cord he has grown in America.

Tricky also it is to forsake the mall, the summer blockbuster movie

fare, or the free and modern emergency room. Mexican television

in America broadcasts not dry notices of immigration reform

or Mexican consulate seminars, but splashy Jerry Springer–like

talk shows, where Chicanas with dyed blond hair, breast implants

and bare navels wiggle in the audience and chatter in hot tubs,

unlike anything that used to be aired in the village plaza in Mexico.

America, it turns out, gets into one’s blood. A Mexican once told

me, �śI’m Siamese twins�"my Mexican and American heads so

glued together I can’t turn in either direction.”

But just because the illegal alien visits Mexico without stay-

ing permanently does not necessarily mean he is happy in America.

Within three years�"five at most�"a series of stark realizations

about the United States begin to crystallize in the mind of the

alien. Most of those under twenty-five that I encounter are per-

petually smiling. They bounce, not shuffle, on the sidewalk. They

laugh out loud. Not so their elders forty and above. I see the Great

Awareness etched on their faces. These guys grimace and wave their

hands in anger, exhibiting more frustration than can be attributed

to the ambiguity of middle age. A Mexican male who may be fifty

often looks sixty and walks as if he is seventy.







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