ArcaMax

SAN DIEGO -- The California governor's race was supposed to be about the cost of living. Instead, it became a group therapy session about the price of identity.

Here in my home state, with three weeks to go until the polls open on Nov. 3, we should be discussing inflation, gas prices, and the lack of affordable housing. Instead, we're haggling over the hot-button issues of culture, language and national origin.

No surprise. California is rooted in contradiction. One of the most racially and ethnically diverse states in the union always finds itself at war with its diversity.

We've been this way since the mid-1800s, when this pretty and productive piece of real estate on the coast was pilfered from Mexico. In the decades that followed, we welcomed one group of immigrants after another -- Irish, Chinese, Italians, Armenians, Portuguese, Mexicans, etc. -- to build the state's farmland and infrastructure. Then we treated them like second-class citizens.

As a native Californian who has written about politics for nearly four decades, I told my friends months ago that the race between Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton was going to get ugly. I didn't realize it would also get bizarre.

We're arguing over whether Becerra -- a Mexican American who was born in Sacramento -- is really the child of immigrants he claims to be.

This telenovela is maddening for Mexican Americans. We understand perfectly what's going on here, and many of us feel insulted that we have to keep introducing ourselves to fellow Californians who have lived in close proximity to us for generations.

Or in the case of Hilton -- who immigrated here from Great Britain in 2012 and only got around to becoming a U.S. citizen in 2021 -- about 30 minutes.

Hilton and his right-wing supporters -- many of whom seem to have recently experienced an epiphany that the California GOP actually respects immigrants after more than 30 years of demonizing them -- accuse Becerra of lying about his origin story.

In truth, it is the red team that is fibbing about Becerra lying.

The Democrat has said on the campaign trail, and on his campaign website, that both his parents crossed into the United States -- "two immigrants, $12 and a dream."

Republicans are yelling foul because Manuel Guerrero Becerra was born in Sacramento in 1928. The fact that Becerra's father -- who passed away in 2020 -- was born in the United States is common knowledge. I wrote about it in a column in August.

Even so, Hilton and his supporters accuse the former 12-term congressman and former Health and Human Services Secretary of "immigrant stolen valor."

Another epiphany. Who knew that California Republicans -- who blame all the state's problems on foreigners -- thought immigrants had any valor to steal?

Look, I've beaten up on Xavier a time or two because he is better at serving the Democratic Party than the Latino community. And if he gets elected governor, as the polls suggest is likely, there will be more beatings to come.

However, his father sounds like the real deal. Check out this passage from Senor Becerra's obituary: "His parents moved the family to Tijuana, Mexico, while he was a child, where he began to shine shoes or sell fruits picked from his father's farm after school. When he returned to California as a young teenager, living with relatives, he learned schools made little effort to teach an industrious 'migrant', but employers were intent on hiring him. For several years, Manuel worked as a farm worker along the spine of Highway 99 and as a railroad worker for Southern Pacific Railroad."

In 1953, Manuel went back to Mexico. He met Maria Teresa in Guadalajara, Jalisco, and they got married. Manuel came back to California, this time with his bride. How much money did they have in their pockets? Probably $12.

So was Manuel Guerrero Becerra a U.S. citizen, or an immigrant? He was both. He became the first at birth, and the second during the multiple times that he crossed the border from Mexico into the United States. Society treated him that way, and that's how he saw himself. Just another Mexican immigrant.

I'm probably wasting my breath. All of this goes over the heads of Hilton and his supporters. Their knowledge of all things Mexican doesn't seem to extend beyond whatever items are on the No. 3 combination plate at their favorite Mexican restaurant.

The fact that Hilton, a former Fox News host who wants to lead a state that is 40% Latino, needs to be schooled on the migratory quirks of my community is not an appetizing thought.

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To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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