By Chad Groening
September 16, 2003

(AgapePress) - A California college professor who grew up in a heavily Hispanic-populated area says there has been a major paradigm shift in the type of immigrants that live in California now.

Dr. Victor Davis Hanson teaches classics at California State University, Fresno, one of the 23 campuses in the California State University system. He says when he grew up in the nearby San Joaquin Valley, the majority of the population were Mexican immigrants who had become Americans and who made a genuine effort to become "acculturated" and to assimilate into mainstream American society.

Hanson believes that type of immigration established a healthy pattern for all concerned. "When people came from Mexico in numbers that were smaller and would allow greater chance for assimilation -- along with legalities so that they didn't live in the shadows of society -- they were less likely to be exploited by employers, they were more likely to vote, and they were more likely to learn English," he says.

But now, the professor says, thanks to uncontrolled immigration, the region's population is composed mostly of illegal aliens who live in separate communities, isolated from mainstreaming influences.

"The results have been that today's immigrant from Mexico is less likely to be confronted with an environment that promotes integration, English mastery, and fundamental basic civic education, and is much more likely to be here illegally," Hanson explains.

The classics instructor believes another factor that further discourages assimilation is the introduction of the separatist principle of "La Raza." The term, Spanish for "the race," has come to be associated with a movement that exalts Hispanic ethnicity and group identity as a response to societal marginalization.

In addition to teaching, Hanson also, like generations of his family before him, works as a fruit farmer in California's central valley. He has also authored a number of books. While sympathetic to Mexico's poor, he has observed the effects of the last 30 years of mass flight from Mexico and endured the crime and social decay associated with illegal immigration.

In his recent book Mexifornia: A State of Becoming (Encounter Books, 2003), Hanson suggests ways to address some of these issues, including reducing legal immigration, patrolling the U.S.-Mexican border more effectively, and insisting on the rapid acculturation of new immigrants.

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