Rating: 
Summary: Someone who sees it as it is!
Review: This book shows how Mexico sends their poor to America to work, so they don't have to improve their own country, and how we use these people for cheap labor so that we can sell things for less. It's a deal made between the two countries. The trouble is, it's not what American citizens want. The "servants of the people", the representatives, are not listening to us, so it's always exciting to read something that really tells it like it is. This book is written from the viewpoint of someone who actually lives with these Mexican immigrants. The rich people who want to use them in their businesses for cheap labor don't live with them; the liberal elites who push for them to get amnesty don't live with them. This guy lives among them, and knows the problems first hand, and as I suspected, there are many, and they're not pretty. He writes very bluntly about the problems, but not without sympathy for the Mexican immigrants whose own country won't take care of them. With all the new books out and the discussions going on about legal and illegal immigration, and what the American people want, I'm hoping that these problems will be solved. This book is one of the best on the subject, because it is written from a viewpoint of personal experience.
Rating:
Summary: dispassionate, honest , and objective
Review: It is rare to read such a cogent and well reasoned analysis of a complex social issue. Mr. Hanson obviously knows the territory and his book examines the immigration issue from all perspectives never sacrificing the truth for sloganism nor proposing that there is a simple solution to this crisis. An absolute must read for anyone interested in the border issue regardless of their political persuasion.
Rating: 
Summary: Speaking Fearlessly
Review: First of all, Dr. Hanson's proximity to the issue and its negative effects on him and his family both qualifies him to write of it, but also questions his objectivity. Clearly, Dr. Hanson addresses the effects of the "Latino" period of California culture (Native American -> Spanish -> Mexican -> Anglo - Asian/Latino), but all is not doom and gloom. Many of us welcome the introduction of Latino influence into our culture: emphasis on family, relgion, hard work, and community. Finally, the goal should be to "Americanize" the immigrant ASAP while retaining the social splendor and traditions of the native land, wether it be Italian, Irish, Mexican or Armenian. Buy this book and read it three times!
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Summary: Immigration Rational
Review: I admit to reading only one chapter at the publisher's website, but as a Californian for many years, although not native to this region I am one of the more liberal-minded who meet Mr. Hansen in the middle to assess this ecological problem. And make no mistake about it, it is just that. No amount of cultural relativism or nativist ranting will solve it. Only meaningful dialogue that leads ultimately to, as Hansen concludes, a return to controlled assimilation in the melting pot, not the diametrical mosaic we have now. Only then will all of us in the lifeboat find a sustainable future. We don't have that now.
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Summary: A Sobering View of Immigration From the Southern Border
Review: This is a must read for all Americans (of all races and colors) who are concerned with the immigration crisis (yes crisis) across our southern border. This book should be required reading for our politicians and educators who choose to seek band-aid approaches (sometimes for self serving reasons) to solving the far reaching issues discussed in this riviting work by Dr. Hanson. I couldn't put the book down but when I finished reading the book, I asked myself - - where do we go from here?
Rating:
Summary: the Turn.
Review: As a first generation American of Mexican descent - I too have fought long and hard to understand my place in this country. I applaud the author and anyone who sincerely cares enough to address one of the most pressing issues facing our nation today. From left to right - from liberal all the way across the spectrum to conservative -- the time has come for all concerned to address these issues head on. America, the greatest on-going experiment of freedom and democracy is at a turning point. We can no longer afford to wait and see what our opinions will resolve. We need facts. We need honesty. We need the will to resolve these issues so that the dream may live on.
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Summary: Will California have 40 million or 70 milion in 50 years?
Review: Some 35 million people live in California, the fifth or sixth largest economy in the world. Yet it only took thirty years to bring it down to the present mess. In 150 pages, Dr. Victor Davis Hanson presents a meaningful picture of how this happened. From his book I have come to a better understanding of what has taken place and continues to this day. This overwhelming invasion by illegals of the most populated state in the nation is well on the way toward "Mexifornia" unless something is done to change it. Hanson suggests four alternative solutions for Californians to consider. It is for them to decide. I am concerned about the uncontrolled, massive illegal immigration that continues daily across our borders, aided and abetted by vote-seeking, self-serving politicians, especially in Sacramento. They seem not to care about the State of California as a whole. Victor Hanson grew up as a white minority kid in Selma, near Fresno, where the other kids were mostly Hispanic. He knows how good it was then, learning about America, and how it has changed over the years. I bought the book after reading numerous reviews. The author was established and recognized. I haven't been disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: But I already knew why I left California for good!
Review: Good, sensible comments on the disaster done to California by the influx of Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal. They are turning California into a province of Mexico, .... But Hanson, although an academic and presumably accustomed to outlining his theses with some care, gives us a repetitious screed rather than a reasoned analysis. I suspect he wrote the book too quickly and is in fact writing far too many books in a short time. In any case, I found all he says true during my almost forty years in California, the change from a sparsely populated paradise to a congested, foul-aired, ecological and demographic disaster. He might have said more about the role of the Catholic Church in smuggling immigrants across the border, encouraging their failure to assimilate, and in making the Church an instrument of decadence rather than uplift.
Rating:
Summary: Well done
Review: First, I find it very telling that the worst review of this book was written by someone who admits he/she did not read the book! But I, too, at first approached this book warily -- willing to read it because I enjoy Hanson's other books. But I have no interest whatsoever in an anti-hispanic book....If I had to be described in a few too easy words, they would be that I am profoundly liberal and sympathetic to the immigrants. However, this book turned out not to be anti-immigrant -- really the opposite. Dr. Hanson takes a good look at the problems of multiculturism (and we all know what those are, now, don't we? We all know the term "Balkanism"), and the situation where there exits a large infrastructure of folks with a vested interest in maintaining a hostile sense of "otherness" among immigrants. In the end, the immigrants, and American society as a whole suffers. Dr. Hanson proposes some solutions which sound reasonable. Why did we ever turn from the model of folks coming from many cultures (still treasuring old memories), yet assimilating into one great American culture? Yes, there was injustice at times. Tell me there isn't now! But the important thing was that it was not usually institutionalized injustice...just stupid individuals. This is an excellent book, and I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: A Voice Against Cultural Annihiliation
Review: Hanson is one of those rare voices with the courage to draw attention to the cultural annihilation of the American West by relentless illegal immigration from Mexico. The book is sure to draw venomous rage from the depleted gene pool of the American left.
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