zuckerberg is a major donor to the mexican fascist party of la raza "The Race".
"Nonetheless, open border advocates, such as Facebook Chairman Mark Zuckerberg, claim illegal aliens are a net benefit to California with little evidence to support such an assertion. As the Center for Immigration Studies has documented, the vast majority of illegals are poor, uneducated, and with few skills. How does accepting millions of illegal aliens and then granting them access to dozens of welfare programs benefit California’s economy? If illegal aliens were contributing to the economy in any meaningful way, California, with its 2.6 million illegal aliens, would be booming."
MICHELE MALKIN
Understanding LA RAZA / UNIDOSus: The U.S. tax
dollar funded Mexican fascist party which is the fastest growing political
party in America
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/07/michelle-malkin-understanding-us-funded.html
Only in America could critics of a group
called "The Race" be labeled racists. Such is the triumph of
left-wing identity chauvinists, whose aggressive activists and supine abettors
have succeeded in redefining all opposition as "hate."
*
Previous
generations of immigrants did not believe they were racially superior to
Americans. That is the view of La Raza Cosmica, by Jose Vasconcelos,
Mexico’s former education minister and a presidential candidate. According to
this book, republished in 1979 by the Department of Chicano Studies at Cal
State LA, students of Scandinavian, Dutch and English background are dullards,
blacks are ugly and inferior, and those “Mongols” with the slanted eyes lack
enterprise. The superior new “cosmic” race of Spaniards and Indians is
replacing them, and all Yankee “Anglos.” LLOYD
BILLINGSLEY/ FRONTPAGE mag
Koch Brothers, Mark Zuckerberg Open Borders Groups Try to Revive DACA Amnesty
The pro-mass immigration GOP megadonor billionaire Koch brothers are uniting with Facebook CEO billionaire Mark Zuckerberg’s open borders lobbying group to try to revive a push that would give amnesty to at least 3.5 million illegal aliens.
The Koch brothers’ LIBRE Initiative teamed with Zuckerberg’s FWD.us lobbying group for a meeting on Capitol Hill to push Republican lawmakers to back an amnesty for the 3.5 million illegal aliens who are eligible and enrolled on President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
@David_J_Bier says that the government shouldn’t pick an arbitrary immigration cap but rather the market should guide immigration levels.
@JorgeALima wraps up an informative panel. Thank you to our special guests, @SenatorLankford and @RepJeffDenham for joining us today! And thank you to our panelists from @CatoInstitute, @NiskanenCenter, and @FWDus. pic.twitter.com/JwFjr0q2cV
Amnesty backers Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA) and Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) both spoke at the Koch brothers event, along with FWD.us’s Mark Delich.
Denham said he wanted to pass an amnesty for DACA illegal aliens once and for all, while Lankford said the U.S. should bring in immigrants to do U.S. jobs since unemployment in the country has been lowered by President Trump’s economic and immigration policies.
The Koch brothers’ panel discussion also praised the process known as “chain migration,” where newly naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S. regardless of their skills or English proficiency.
.@kdpindc says that in order to get the message out that the majority of Americans have a positive view of immigration, we must stay informed and hold Congress accountable.
Mark Delich from @FWDus reminds attendees that a substantial number of immigrants who are entrepreneurs and successful CEO’s immigrated through family migration.
“I’m concerned with fixing this issue once and for all.” - @RepJeffDenham pic.twitter.com/D5DxKvheF0
“Whatever we do on immigration (in Congress) will be a bipartisan conversation” - @SenatorLankford pic.twitter.com/TfMM2YXW28
The push for DACA amnesty from the Koch brothers, the Republican establishment, and Zuckerberg’s FWD.us comes as the issue was essentially killed months ago when two amnesty pieces of legislation failed to pass out of the GOP-controlled House.
Midterm voters have repeatedly said they want less immigration to the U.S. A majority of swing voters and white voters in battleground districts say immigration from Central America and Mexico has made life in America “worse.” More than 4-in-9 black Americans in swing districts say the same of immigration.
Meanwhile, nearly 2-in-3 likely American voters say they want to see legal immigration to the U.S. reduced, as Breitbart News noted. A most recent poll found that a majority of conservatives say they generally oppose all immigration to the U.S.
Currently, the U.S. admits more than 1.5 million legal and illegal immigrants every year, with more than 70 percent coming to the country through chain migration. In the next 20 years, the current U.S. legal immigration system is on track to import roughly 15 million new foreign-born voters. Between seven and eight million of those foreign-born voters will arrive in the U.S. through chain migration.
CRIMINALS WIN BIG IN CALIFORNIA
SANCTUARY RULING
Bush
appointee upholds protections for false-documented illegals.
July 9, 2018
“California beats Trump in sanctuary state battle’s first
round,” read
the page-one Sacramento Bee headline last
Friday. As readers discovered, it was actually a split decision and Trump
scored a big hit.
U.S. District Court Judge John Mendez, an
appointee of George W. Bush, ruled that the state could not prevent private
employers from denying federal immigration authorities from worksites. Mendez
found that AB 450 “which imposes monetary penalties on an employer solely
because that employer voluntarily consents to federal immigration enforcement’s
entry into nonpublic areas of their place of business or access to their
employment records impermissibly discriminates against those who choose to deal
with the federal government.”
On the other hand, Mendez upheld the law’s
requirement that companies inform workers within 72 hours of any federal
request to examine employment records. So in the style of Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf, employers can still provide lookout
services for false-documented illegals.
Mendez denied the federal request against
SB 54, the state’s sanctuary law. As author Kevin de Leon told reporters,
“today, a federal judge made clear what I’ve known all along, that SB 54, the
California Values Act is constitutional and does not conflict with federal law.
California is under no obligation to assist Trump tear apart families. We
cannot stop his mean-spirited immigration policies, but we don’t have to help
him, and we won’t.”
As Mendez ruled, “refusing to help is not
the same as impeding.” The federal judge also upheld AB 103, allowing the state
attorney general to inspect detention facilities. Current attorney general
Xavier Becerra, once on Hillary Clinton’s short list as a running mate
and a key player in the Democrats’ IT scandal, proclaimed, “The Constitution gives the
people of California, not the Trump Administration, the power to decide how we
will provide for our public safety and general welfare.”
Californians had a right to wonder about
the “safety” part. In this 2-1 split decision the biggest winners are criminal
illegals.
Senate Bill 54, the Bee report noted, “has
eliminated much of the discretionary power that local law enforcement
previously had to privately share information with federal immigration agents
about people who have been arrested and put in county jails.” So despite the
protestations of hereditary, recurring governor Jerry Brown, California is
protecting criminal illegals. With that in mind, legitimate citizens might look
ahead to the November election.
Brown, a three-time presidential loser,
recently signed off on a budget that spends tens of millions of dollars to help
illegals fight efforts to deport them. This includes some $45 million in legal
services steered to state colleges, and $10 million to help younger illegals,
including “undocumented migrants.” This outlandish spending is hardly the
state’s only way to privilege false-document illegals.
A 2015 law, “streamlines” the process of voter
registration and kicks in when someone gets a driver’s license at the DMV. As
of March, 2018, more than one million illegals have received licenses.
Secretary of state Alex Padilla touts “firewall” protections against ineligible
voters. This is the same official who refused to cooperate with a federal
probe of voter fraud, so legal residents and taxpayers have good reason to
wonder what he is hiding.
Senate boss Kevin de Leon, author of SB
54, is on record that half his family would be eligible for deportation under
Trump’s executive order because they used false Social Security cards and other
bogus identification. In his own case, as Christopher Cadelago of the Sacramento Bee explains, “The name on his birth certificate isn’t
Kevin de León.”
On his birth certificate and voter rolls,
“the 50-year-old politician is Kevin Alexander Leon,” born on December 10, 1966
at California Hospital on South Hope Street in Los Angeles. The birth
certificate “describes his father, Andres Leon, as a 40-year-old cook whose
race was Chinese and whose birthplace was Guatemala. De León’s mother, Carmen
Osorio, was also born in Guatemala, the document states.” As a child, “de León
spent time on both sides of the border,” but he “identifies strongly with
Mexican culture.”
Around Sacramento many found the story
incredible but it now takes on new significance. Senate boss de Leon
spearheaded the smackdown of Sen. Janet Nguyen’s free-speech rights and ordered the Republican, a
refugee from Communist Vietnam, carted off the senate floor. The senate boss
also appointed a false-documented Mexican national to a state
position,
a violation of Proposition 209, a voter-approved law that forbids racial and ethnic
preferences in state employment, education and contracting.
The public never voted on de Leon’s
sanctuary bill, but the author is now on the November ballot contending with fellow Democrat
Dianne Feinstein for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Republicans are again shut out of the
senate race because in California primaries the top two vote-getters advance
regardless of party.
As a State Department investigation
confirms, false-documented illegals have been voting in local,
state and federal elections for decades. Legitimate citizens and legal immigrants
now have a stronger case for ID checks on voters and candidates alike. Under
the Mendez ruling many more illegals, including criminals, will be seeking
protected, privileged status in California.
Adios, Sanctuary La Raza Welfare State of California
A fifth-generation Californian
laments his state’s ongoing economic collapse.
By Steve Baldwin
American Spectator, October 19, 2017
What’s clear is that the producers are leaving the state and the takers are coming in. Many of the takers are illegal aliens, now estimated to number over 2.6 million. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates that California spends $22 billion on government services for illegal aliens, including welfare, education, Medicaid, and criminal justice system costs.
By Steve Baldwin
American Spectator, October 19, 2017
What’s clear is that the producers are leaving the state and the takers are coming in. Many of the takers are illegal aliens, now estimated to number over 2.6 million. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates that California spends $22 billion on government services for illegal aliens, including welfare, education, Medicaid, and criminal justice system costs.
BLOG:
MANY DISPUTE CALIFORNIA’S EXPENDITURES FOR THE LA RAZA WELFARE STATE IN
MEXIFORNIA JUST AS THEY DISPUTE THE NUMBER OF ILLEGALS. APPROXIMATELY HALF THE
POPULATION OF CA IS NOW MEXICAN AND BREEDING ANCHOR BABIES FOR WELFARE LIKE
BUNNIES. THE $22 BILLION IS STATE EXPENDITURE ONLY. COUNTIES PAY OUT MORE WITH
LOS ANGELES COUNTY LEADING AT OVER A BILLION DOLLARS PAID OUT YEARLY TO
MEXICO’S ANCHOR BABY BREEDERS. NOW MULTIPLY THAT BY THE NUMBER OF COUNTIES IN
CA AND YOU START TO GET AN IDEA OF THE STAGGERING WELFARE STATE MEXICO AND THE
DEMOCRAT PARTY HAVE ERECTED SANS ANY LEGALS VOTES. ADD TO THIS THE FREE ENTERPRISE
HOSPITAL AND CLINIC COST FOR LA RAZA’S “FREE” MEDICAL WHICH IS ESTIMATED TO BE
ABOUT $1.5 BILLION PER YEAR.
Liberals
claim they more than make that up with taxes paid, but that’s simply not true.
It’s not even close. FAIR estimates illegal aliens in California contribute
only $1.21 billion in tax revenue, which means they cost California $20.6
billion, or at least $1,800 per household.
Nonetheless, open border advocates, such as Facebook Chairman Mark Zuckerberg, claim illegal aliens are a net benefit to California with little evidence to support such an assertion. As the Center for Immigration Studies has documented, the vast majority of illegals are poor, uneducated, and with few skills. How does accepting millions of illegal aliens and then granting them access to dozens of welfare programs benefit California’s economy? If illegal aliens were contributing to the economy in any meaningful way, California, with its 2.6 million illegal aliens, would be booming.
Furthermore, the complexion of illegal aliens has changed with far more on welfare and committing crimes than those who entered the country in the 1980s. Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has testified before a Congressional committee that in 2004, 95% of all outstanding warrants for murder in Los Angeles were for illegal aliens; in 2000, 23% of all Los Angeles County jail inmates were illegal aliens and that in 1995, 60% of Los Angeles’s largest street gang, the 18th Street gang, were illegal aliens. Granted, those statistics are old, but if you talk to any California law enforcement officer, they will tell you it’s much worse today. The problem is that the Brown administration will not release any statewide data on illegal alien crimes. That would be insensitive. And now that California has declared itself a “sanctuary state,” there is little doubt this sends a message south of the border that will further escalate illegal immigration into the state.
Nonetheless, open border advocates, such as Facebook Chairman Mark Zuckerberg, claim illegal aliens are a net benefit to California with little evidence to support such an assertion. As the Center for Immigration Studies has documented, the vast majority of illegals are poor, uneducated, and with few skills. How does accepting millions of illegal aliens and then granting them access to dozens of welfare programs benefit California’s economy? If illegal aliens were contributing to the economy in any meaningful way, California, with its 2.6 million illegal aliens, would be booming.
Furthermore, the complexion of illegal aliens has changed with far more on welfare and committing crimes than those who entered the country in the 1980s. Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has testified before a Congressional committee that in 2004, 95% of all outstanding warrants for murder in Los Angeles were for illegal aliens; in 2000, 23% of all Los Angeles County jail inmates were illegal aliens and that in 1995, 60% of Los Angeles’s largest street gang, the 18th Street gang, were illegal aliens. Granted, those statistics are old, but if you talk to any California law enforcement officer, they will tell you it’s much worse today. The problem is that the Brown administration will not release any statewide data on illegal alien crimes. That would be insensitive. And now that California has declared itself a “sanctuary state,” there is little doubt this sends a message south of the border that will further escalate illegal immigration into the state.
"If the racist "Sensenbrenner
Legislation" passes the US Senate, there is no doubt that a massive civil
disobedience movement will emerge. Eventually labor union power can merge with
the immigrant civil rights and "Immigrant
Sanctuary" movements to enable us to either form a new political
party or to do heavy duty reforming of the existing Democratic Party. The next
and final steps would follow and that is to elect our own governors of all the
states within Aztlan."
Indeed, California goes out of its way to attract illegal aliens. The state has even created government programs that cater exclusively to illegal aliens. For example, the State Department of Motor Vehicles has offices that only process driver licenses for illegal aliens. With over a million illegal aliens now driving in California, the state felt compelled to help them avoid the long lines the rest of us must endure at the DMV. And just recently, the state-funded University of California system announced it will spend $27 million on financial aid for illegal aliens. They’ve even taken out radio spots on stations all along the border, just to make sure other potential illegal border crossers hear about this program. I can’t afford college education for all my four sons, but my taxes will pay for illegals to get a college education.
Indeed, California goes out of its way to attract illegal aliens. The state has even created government programs that cater exclusively to illegal aliens. For example, the State Department of Motor Vehicles has offices that only process driver licenses for illegal aliens. With over a million illegal aliens now driving in California, the state felt compelled to help them avoid the long lines the rest of us must endure at the DMV. And just recently, the state-funded University of California system announced it will spend $27 million on financial aid for illegal aliens. They’ve even taken out radio spots on stations all along the border, just to make sure other potential illegal border crossers hear about this program. I can’t afford college education for all my four sons, but my taxes will pay for illegals to get a college education.
If Immigration Creates
Wealth, Why Is California America's Poverty Capital?
California
used to be home to America's largest and most affluent middle
class. Today, it is America's poverty
capital. What went wrong? In a word:
immigration. According to the U.S. Census Bureau'...: The Golden State is peddling fool's gold lately.
California used to be
home to America's largest and most affluent middle class. Today, it
is America's poverty capital. What went wrong? In a
word: immigration.
According to the U.S. Census
Bureau's Official
Poverty Measure, California's poverty rate hovers around 15
percent. But this figure is misleading: the Census Bureau measures
poverty relative to a uniform national standard, which doesn't account for
differences in living costs between states – the cost of taxes, housing, and
health care are higher in California than in Oklahoma, for example. Accounting
for these differences reveals that California's
real poverty rate is 20.6 percent – the highest in America, and
nearly twice the national average of 12.7 percent.
Likewise, income
inequality in California is the second-highest in America, behind
only New York. In fact, if California were an independent country,
it would be the 17th most unequal country on Earth, nestled comfortably between
Honduras and Guatemala. Mexico is slightly more
egalitarian. California is far more unequal than the "social
democracies" it emulates: Canada is the 111th most unequal nation,
while Norway is far down the list at number 153 (out of 176
countries). In terms of income inequality, California has more in
common with banana republics than other "social democracies."
More Government, More Poverty
High taxes, excessive regulations,
and a lavish welfare state – these are the standard explanations for
California's poverty epidemic. They have some merit. For
example, California has both the highest personal income tax rate and the
highest sales tax in America, according to Politifact.
Not only are California's taxes high,
but successive "progressive" governments have swamped the state in a
sea of red tape. Onerous regulations cripple small businesses and
retard economic growth. Kerry Jackson, a fellow with the Pacific
Research Institute, gives a few specific examples of how excessive government
regulation hurts California's poor. He writes in a recent op-ed for
the Los
Angeles Times:
Extensive environmental regulations
aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions make energy more expensive, also
hurting the poor. By some estimates, California energy costs are as
much as 50% higher than the national average. Jonathan A. Lesser of
Continental Economics ... found that "in 2012, nearly 1 million California
households faced ... energy expenditures exceeding 10% of household
income."
Some government regulation is
necessary and desirable, but most of California's is not. There is
virtue in governing with a "light touch."
Finally, California's welfare state
is, perhaps paradoxically, a source of poverty in the
state. The Orange
Country Register reports that California's social safety net is
comparable in scale to those found in Europe:
In California a mother
with two children under the age of 5 who participates in these major welfare
programs – Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (food stamps), housing assistance, home energy assistance,
Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children – would
receive a benefits package worth $30,828 per year.
... [Similar] benefits
in Europe ranged from $38,588 per year in Denmark to just $1,112 in
Romania. The California benefits package is higher than in
well-known welfare states as France ($17,324), Germany ($23,257) and even
Sweden ($22,111).
Although welfare states ideally help the poor, reality
is messy. There are three main problems with the welfare
state. First, it incentivizes poverty by rewardingthe poor with government
handouts that are often far more valuable than a job. This can be
ameliorated to some degree by imposing work requirements on welfare recipients,
but in practice, such requirements are rarely imposed. Second,
welfare states are expensive. This means
higher taxes and therefore slower economic growth and fewer job opportunities
for everyone – including the poor.
Finally, welfare states are magnets
for the poor. Whether through domestic migration or foreign
immigration, poor people flock to places with generous welfare
states. This is logical from the immigrant's perspective, but it
makes little sense from the taxpayer's. This fact is why socialism
and open borders arefundamentally
incompatible.
Why Big Government?
Since 1960, California's population
exploded from 15.9 to 39 million people. The growth
was almost entirely due to immigration – many people came from other states,
but the majority came from abroad. The Public Policy
Institute of California estimates that 10 million immigrants
currently reside in California. This works out to 26 percent of the
state's population.
BLOG: COME TO
MEXIFORNIA! HALF OF LOS ANGELES 15 MILLION ARE ILLEGALS!
This figure includes
2.4 million illegal aliens, although a recent
study from Yale University suggests that the true number of aliens
is at least double that. Modifying the initial figure implies that nearly one in three Californians is an immigrant. This
is not to disparage California's immigrant population, but it is madness to
deny that such a large influx of people has changed California's society and
economy.
Importantly, immigrants vote
Democrat by a ratio higher than 2:1, according to a report from the Center
for Immigration Studies. In California, immigration has
increased the pool of likely Democrat voters by nearly 5 million people,
compared to just 2.4 million additional likely Republican
voters. Not only does this almost guarantee Democratic victories,
but it also shifts California's political midpoint to the left. This
means that to remain competitive in elections, the Republicans must abandon or soften many
conservative positions so as to cater to the center.
California became a
Democratic stronghold not because Californians became socialists, but because
millions of socialists moved there. Immigration turned California
blue, and immigration is ultimately to blame for California's high poverty
level.
REALITIES OF A STATE IN
MELTDOWN:
THE INVISIBLE CALIFORNIA
De facto apartheid world in the Golden State.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270265/invisible-california-bruce-thornton
In 1973, as I was going through customs in
New York, the customs agent rifling my bag looked at my passport and said, with
a Bronx sneer, “Bruce Thornton, huh. Must be one of them Hollywood names.”
Hearing that astonishing statement, I
realized for the first time that California is as much an idea as a place.
There were few regions in America more distant from Hollywood than the rural,
mostly poor, multiethnic San Joaquin Valley where my family lived and ranched.
Yet to this New Yorker, the Valley was invisible.
BLOG: FEINSTEIN & BOXER THREE TIMES
ATTEMPTED TO INSERT IN VARIOUS BILLS AN AMNESTY FOR FARM WORKERS TO REPAY THEIR
BIG AG BIG DONORS.
ONE-THIRD OF ALL FARM WORKERS END UP ON
WELFARE AS SOON AS THE ANCHOR BABIES START COMING
Coastal Californians are sometimes just as
blind to the world on the other side of the Coast Range, even though its farms,
orchards, vineyards, dairies, and ranches comprise more than half the
state’s $46
billion agriculture industry, which grows over 400 commodities, including over a third of the
country’s vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and nuts.
Granted, Silicon Valley is an economic
colossus compared to the ag industry, but agriculture’s importance can’t be
measured just in dollars and cents. Tech, movies, and every other industry
tends to forget that their lives and businesses, indeed civilization itself,
all rest on the shoulders of those who produce the food. You can live without
your iPhone or your Mac or the latest Marvel Studios blockbuster. But you can’t live without the food grown by the one out of a
100 people who work to feed the other 99.
A Politically Invisible Valley
Living in the most conservative counties
in the
deepest-blue state, Valley residents
constantly see
their concerns, beliefs, and needs
seldom taken
into account at the state or federal
level.
Registered Democrats in California
outnumber registered Republicans by over 19%, and the State Legislature seats about twice as many Democrats as
Republicans (California’s one of only eight states nationwide with a trifecta of a Democratic and two Democratic
controlled legislative bodies).
California’s Congressional delegation is
even more unbalanced: in the House of Representatives, currently there are
fourteen Republicans compared to thirty-nine House Democrats (at least half of
those GOP districts are in danger of turning blue this fall); half the Republicans represent Central Valley districts, none
bordering the Pacific Ocean. The last elected Republican US Senator left office
in 1991. The last Republican governor was the politically light-pink
action-movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose second term ended in 2011.
This progressive dominance of the state
has led to policies and priorities that has damaged its agricultural economy
and seriously degraded the quality of life in the Valley.
Despite a long drought that has diminished
the run-off of snow from the Sierra Nevada, projects for dams and reservoirs
are on hold, seriously impacting the ag industry that relies on the snowmelt
for most of its water. Worse yet, since 2008, a period including the height of
the drought, 1.4 trillion gallons of water have been dumped into the Pacific
Ocean to protect the endangered Delta Smelt, a two-inch bait-fish. Thousands of agricultural jobs have been
lost and farmland left uncultivated, all to satisfy the sensibilities of
affluent urban environmentalists. And even after a few years of abundant rain,
Valley farmers this year are receiving just 20% of their South-of-the-Delta water allocation.
Or take California’s high-speed rail
project, currently moribund and $10 billion over budget just for construction of the easiest section, through the
flat center of the Valley. Meanwhile, State Highway 99, which bisects the
Valley from north to south for 500 miles, is pot-holed, inefficient, and
crammed with 18-wheel semis. It is the bloodiest highway in the country, in
dire need of widening and repair. Yet to
gratify our Democratic governor’s
high-tech green obsession, billions of
dollars are
being squandered to create an
unnecessary link
between the Bay Area and Los
Angeles. That’s $10 billion that could have been
spent building more reservoirs instead of dumping water into the ocean because
there’s no place to store it.
The common thread of these two examples
of
mismanagement and waste is the
romantic
environmentalism of the well-heeled
coastal left.
They serially support government
projects and
regulations that impact the poor and the
aged, who
are left to bear their costs.
The same idealized nature-love has led to
regulations and taxes on energy that have made California home of the
third-worst energy poverty in the country. In sweltering San Joaquin Valley
counties like Madera and Tulare, energy poverty rates are 15% compared to 3–4% in cool, deep-blue coastal enclaves.
Impoverished Kings County averages over $500 a month in electric bills, while
tony Marin Country, with an average income twice that of Kings County, averages
$200. Again, it’s the poor, aged, and working class who bear the brunt of these
costs, especially in the Valley where temperatures regularly reach triple
digits in the summer; unlike the coast, where the clement climate makes
expensive air-conditioning unnecessary.
Deteriorating Quality of Life
It’s no wonder then that Fresno, in the
heart of the
Valley, is the second most impoverished
city in the
poorest region of a state that has the
highest
poverty levels in the country and one of
the
highest rates of income inequality. Over
one-fifth
of its residents live below the poverty
line, and it
The greatest impact on the Valley’s
deteriorating quality of life, however,
has been
the influx of illegal aliens. Some are attracted by
plentiful agriculture and construction
work, and
others by California’s generous welfare
transfers
— California is home to one in three of
the
country’s welfare recipients— all
facilitated by
California’s status as a “sanctuary
state” that
regularly releases felons rather than
cooperate
with Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE). As a result, one-quarter of the
country’s
from underdeveloped regions of Mexico
and Latin
America that have different social and
cultural
mores and attitudes to the law and
civic
responsibility.
The consequences of these feckless
policies are
found throughout the state. But they
are
especially noticeable in rural California.
There
high levels of crime and daily
disorder—from
murders, assaults, and drug trafficking,
to
driving without insurance, DUIs,
hit-and-runs,
and ignoring building and sanitation
codes—
have degraded or, in some cases, destroyed
the
once-orderly farming towns that used to
be
populated by earlier immigrants,
including
many legal immigrants from Mexico, who
over
a few generations of sometimes rocky
coexistence assimilated to American
culture
and society.
Marginalized Cultural Minorities
More broadly, the dominant cultures and
mores of the dot.com north and the Hollywood south are inimical to those of the
Valley. Whether it is gun-ownership, hunting, church-going, or military
service, many people in the San Joaquin Valley of all races are quickly
becoming cultural minorities marginalized by the increasingly radical positions
on issues such as abortion, guns, and religion.
Despite the liberal assumption that all
Hispanics favor progressive policies, many Latino immigrants and their children
find more in common with Valley farmers and natives with whom they live and
work than they do with distant urban elites.
Indeed, as a vocal conservative professor
in the local university (Fresno State), I have survived mainly because my
students, now more than half Latino and Mexican immigrants or children of
immigrants, are traditional and practical in a way that makes them impatient
with the patronizing victim-politics of more affluent professors. They have
more experience with physical labor, they are more religious and, like me, they
are often the first in their families to graduate from college. As I did with
the rural Mexican Americans I grew up with, I usually have more in common with
my students than I do with many of my colleagues.
And this is the great irony of the
invisibility of the “other” California: the blue-coast policies that suit the
prejudices and sensibilities of the affluent have damaged the prospects of the
“others of color” they claim they want to help. Over-
represented on the poverty and welfare
rolls, many
migrants both legal and illegal have seen
water
policies that destroy agricultural jobs,
building
restrictions that drive up the cost of
housing,
energy policies that increase their cost
of living, “sanctuary city” policies that put back on the
streets thugs and criminals who prey
mainly on
their ethnic fellows, and economic
policies that
favor the redistribution rather than the
creation of wealth and jobs.
Meanwhile, the coastal liberals who tout a
cosmetic diversity live in a de facto apartheid world, surrounded by those of
similar income, taste, and politics. Many look down on the people whom they
view as racists and xenophobes at worst, and intellectually challenged rubes at
best. This disdain has been evident in the way the media regularly sneer that
House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes is a “former dairy-farmer” from
Tulare County, an origin that makes “the match between his backstory and his
prominence” seem “wholly incongruous,” per Roll Call's David Hawkings.
Finally, those of us who grew up and live
in the rural Valley did so among a genuine diversity, one that reflected the
more complex identities beyond the crude categories of “white” or “black” or
“Hispanic.”
Italians, Basques, Portuguese, Armenians,
Swedes, Mexicans, Filipinos, Southern blacks, Chinese, Japanese, Volga Germans,
Scotch-Irish Dust Bowl migrants—all migrated to the Valley to work the fields
and better their lives. Their children and grandchildren went to the same
schools, danced together and drank together, helped round up each other’s
animals when they got loose, were best friends or deadly enemies, dated and
intermarried, got drafted into the Army or joined the Marines—all of them Americans
who managed to honor their diverse heritages and faiths, but still be a
community. Their most important distinctions were not so much between races and
ethnicities, though those of course often collided, but between the respectable
people––those who obeyed the law, went to church, and raised their kids right––
and those we all called “no damned good.” Skin-color or accents couldn’t sort
one from the other.
What most of us learned from living in
real diversity in the Valley is that being an American means taking people one
at a time.
That world still exists, but it is slowly
fading away—in part because of the policies and politics of those to our west,
who can see nothing on the other side of the Coast Range.
ABOUT BRUCE THORNTON
Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism
Fellow at the Freedom Center, a Research Fellow at Stanford's Hoover
Institution, and a Professor of Classics and Humanities at the California State
University. He is the author of nine books and numerous essays on classical
culture and its influence on Western Civilization. His most recent book, Democracy's Dangers and Discontents (Hoover Institution Press), is now available for purchase.
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