New World Rush

I have passed through Williams hundreds of times during the last more than 40 years. I have noticed the changes, but didn't think they were disastrous. I didn't know the Granzellas, who own the major stop in town, were a white-flight bunch. I probably won't be shopping at the Granzellas' place any more, at least not as long as it stands for 'Mexicans go home.' [Editor's Note: The place burned down in Oct., 2007.]

In-store announcements at the Vacaville Home Depot - about 16 miles south of here - are mostly in Spanish. The Dixon Wal*Mart - about 8 miles south of here - is bi-lingual, but largely staffed by Spanish speakers. Anglo food and preferences are rapidly disappearing items. While shopping, I noticed a number of younger folks wearing T-shirts saying "I am NOT Latino. I am NOT Hispanic. I AM MEXICAN." I wasn't surprised or disturbed. It does explain why they don't vote or salute the American flag. Most of the time I vote, but I don't salute the Imperialist American flag.

I live in Yolo County, the next south from Colusa County, wherein lies Williams. Our County seat, Woodland, has been largely "expropriated" by Mexicans. How do I know that? Because they are the people who now staff the University of California, Davis, by far the County's largest employer, just 9 miles from Woodland. Housing is a lot cheaper in Woodland than Davis. Davis is still an Anglo town, largely because yuppies and highly paid professors live here, not students or employees. (The student body is Asian, not Anglo. Lots of students now live in Dixon, Solano County, the next town south, where housing is also much cheaper than Davis.) Davis will change eventually, because little by little the Anglo professionals are dying and being replaced by Chinese, Indians and Japanese. The response of Davis Anglos to the changes seems to be joining the Religious Right, home-schooling the children and preventing the sort of changes that would grant newcomers any power. The fact that students and employees are forced to live elsewhere leaves political power in the hands of the Yuppies and Professariat.

In view of all those changes, how has my life, descendant of Italian immigrants, changed? Not much. Sooner or later I will have to learn Spanish. I am so far disinclined to learn it because I have too many other things to do. But I am not offended by the Mexicans who service this condo complex, or work at the University, or who increasingly appear in County offices. I am not offended by the Chinese, Indians and Japanese who are the new Mandarins of our society. I am offended by those old-timers and Anglos who cannot adjust.

What is really going on is the all-too common rejection of "outsiders." This is clearest in small towns in the boonies, where people are most defensively provincial (i.e., tribal) in their attitudes. What is also going on is an inability to adjust to others, exemplified by the HOA policy of "everything the same." I admit it is hard to accommodate everyone. It takes a lot of effort over a long time. It means accepting the abuses of those who don't agree with what is decided. But there is a solution: communal decision making. Of course, that means you have to have a community.

At this point, I depart from the foregoing, but only to explain the observations. The wave of Mexican immigrants is nothing new in American History. It is only the latest in a long series of immigrations to and within the New World in modern times. The New World - the Americas - are a modern discovery from the point of view of all but the Native Americans. The present political, social and economic conditions of the New World are largely explained by the Founder Effect; i.e., the original settlers determined the underlying culture. Whether recent immigrants speak Spanish, French or English is a superficial feature overlaying the underlying culture.

There is an underlying American culture which pervades the New World. It is the culture of Cortez and Pizzarro, Dutch traders, English Plantation owners, Scots-Irish squatters and Portugese adventurers. All of those were uplifted by lower levels of the pyramid: Black slaves and the poor Irish, Italians, Poles, Germans, Russians, Swedes, Greeks, Chinese, etc who came to the Americas seeking their fortunes. They did not only arrive in the United States. They settled in Canada, the Caribbean, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Mexico, as well as a thousand other places. All of them were Conquistadores at heart, seeking to get rich quick and become Kings. Christopher Columbus was only one of the first of these. The sporadic Gold and Silver Rushes, and the ever-present Plantation are emblematic of what the New World is all about.

There were a few eccentric settlers of the New World, mostly in New England where I was born and educated. Unlike everywhere else in the Americas, New England was settled by a strong contingent of religious and anti-religious people. There were the ruthless, dogmatic Puritans in Boston and the freethinking followers of John Williams in Rhode Island. New England is (still) a tough place to make a living, so those who stayed there had to be highly motivated for non-economic reasons. It is the peculiar circumstances of  those who fled Europe seeking religious freedom that founded the New England culture which eventually led to the War of Independence. The rest of the North America was at the very least reluctant to separate from Great Britain. The South, later the Confederacy, was last to sign onto the Declaration of Independence and the 1787 Constitution. The majority of Southerners actually opposed the American Revolution, were frequent volunteers for the British Army and often fought against the Patriots. The basic concepts of the American Bill of Rights had their origin in the far North of New England. The United States became a "liberal democracy," as defined by the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, because it served the purposes of New England Traders, New York businessmen and Virginia Plantation Owners. It served their economic purposes. Human rights and human liberty were secondary benefits that happened to serve the cause of business. Thus, the Pilgrims arrived to gain freedom from oppression, and their descendants gained freedom to do business. Centuries later, someone said "the business of America is Business."

That, of course, is the point: what brings people to the United States is the same thing that has always brought millions of people to the Americas. The United States is not the only country afflicted with the influx of acquisitive masses. This has been happening continuously in the New World since 1492. The Americas are everywhere perceived as a body to be exploited for instant wealth. The appropriate classical painting is the Rape of the Sabines. It is true, the business of the Americas is business. Liberty and human welfare are only secondary concerns.

What does this explain? Many things, but not everything. For one, Mexicans who come to the United States seeking their fortune are no different from the Spanish who conquered Moctezuma. The Conquistadores never became Mexicans: they were always a Hispanic ruling class in Mexico. The underlying Indians and, later, Mestizos  were used by the dominant Europeans in their desire to be Kings. By and large, it is the descendants of those same oppressed Mexicans who are now finding their way to United States. These descendants want to become Kings.

The Native Americans who were pushed aside by the White Man have at last learned the White Man's ways. Indian Casinos are sprouting up all over the place, gathering the White Man's wealth. Immigrants to the New World are infected, as by a disease, with the desire for riches. In their lust, they will risk anything, no matter the odds. The White Man was quick enough to exploit Indian genetic weaknesses, notoriously selling them deadly blankets infected with small pox and other contagious diseases. Syphilis killed far more Aztecs than Cortez. Now the gambling mania is likely to reduce the White Man to serfdom and eventual extinction. It is ironic Native Americans are lately handing out chips infected with Gold Rush Fever, the one disease to which they have been immune (so far).

What does this have to do with the beleaguered HOA Board? Everything. They are people, mostly black and white, who don't know how to "get into" other people's lives. In fact, America - the New World - is not about getting into other people's lives. It is about exploiting other people for one's own purposes. The really important thing has always been Get Rich Quick. Thus, when charged with dealing other people, the best solution is always reducing them to uniform bumps on a log. Any other solution diminishes oneself, the decision maker, at least to the extent that effort is required to make decisions. Oddly enough, this psychology is no different from that of the Soviet Apparatchiks of another day and place. The leveling of the masses is an opportunity to exalt oneself. And that is completely consistent with the true American lifestyle.

One of the visitors to my book stall commented that the United States is the new Soviet Union.