Lots of VERY interesting posts on the differences between California and
Texas in attitudes to illegal immigration. I am now convinced, at any rate,
that the difference is real. (The last word in my previous post should have
been “Texas,” not “Mexico,” by the way. Freudian slip.)
Several readers believe that the actual Mexicans coming in are different in
the two places, with the Texas-Mexicans much more conservative and
assimilationist, the California ones much more inclined to buy into the
Aztlan/La Raza race-grievance racket, much less inclined to assimilate, or
even to bother learning English.
If this is right it raises the uncomfortable question: Which type of
illegal immigrant is more representative, country-wide? Is California the
anomaly, or Texas? If Texas is the anomaly, and if the background to Bush’s
proposal is the Texas experience, then he is attempting to set national
policy based on the experience of an unrepresentative state.
A reader from Virginia said this more forcefully at the end of a long and
thoughtful e-mail:
“I left California for Virginia because of illegal immigration, and there
are millions like me. It turned California from a moderate state with
forward thinking policies into a third world hellhole run by crazy leftists
(and I mean CRAZY — Barney Frank is quite literally a centrist Dem by
California standards). Bush’s policies are informed by his experience with
Texan Hispanics. He needs to take a good hard look at California, because
that’s what his proposals will turn the country into.”