{"id":490334,"date":"2026-10-09T12:20:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T12:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/490334\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T12:20:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T12:20:13","slug":"hiltons-immigrant-attack-on-becerra-is-despicable-but-heres-where-we-agree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/490334\/","title":{"rendered":"Hilton’s ‘immigrant’ attack on Becerra is despicable. But here’s where we agree"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SACRAMENTO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Over the last week, gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton has created the exact kind of media kerfuffle he loves best by attacking his rival Xavier Becerra for Becerra\u2019s description of his parents as \u201cimmigrants.\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n

Although Becerra\u2019s mother, Maria, was born in Mexico, his father, Manuel, came into the world in Sacramento, in 1928. Soon after, Becerra\u2019s grandparents moved their young family back to Mexico, where Manuel was raised until he returned to the U.S. as a young man to work. <\/p>\n

As my colleague Gustavo Arellano said in a must-read column<\/a>, this border back-and-forth has been more the norm than the exception for California\u2019s Mexican American population for decades, if not centuries. Manuel Becerra\u2019s luck at being born on U.S. soil may have given him an advantage, but it didn\u2019t make him any less of an immigrant, Arellano explained, especially in an era when Sacramento\u2019s Mexican population was below 2,500 and racism remained openly practiced and disturbingly accepted.<\/p>\n

Hilton, however, has seized on Manuel Becerra\u2019s U.S. citizenship<\/a> to brand the younger Becerra a liar, allegedly falsely framing himself as the son of immigrants to gain identity-politics points in a state of immigrants. Whether one or both of Becerra\u2019s parents qualifies as an immigrant might seem like minutiae to most voters, but Hilton\u2019s accusation has thumped on the nerves on both the left and right<\/a> \u2014 including my own, as the daughter of a South Asian immigrant. <\/p>\n

Dog-whistle politics<\/p>\n

Scratch the surface of Hilton\u2019s attack and it becomes about something far more than Manuel Becerra\u2019s citizenship \u2014 it\u2019s a thinly veiled dog whistle about how a \u201cgood\u201d immigrant behaves and how we should handle the \u201cbad\u201d ones. Here\u2019s where all that gets messy for me: I agree with Hilton that being born in the U.S. is a big deal, and being a citizen is a point of pride. It does matter. I also agree with Arellano that Hilton\u2019s attack is despicable. <\/p>\n

Somewhere between those points are truths about immigration in America at this fraught and ugly moment, and just how different California is from the rest of the country when it comes to understanding the issue \u2014 and why that matters.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s Latinos, through numbers, history and hard work, have built political and social power on a scale that few, if any, other immigrant groups anywhere in the U.S. have managed. That unique position in the Golden State has allowed for what I call the magical realism of immigration myths to flourish, a wonderful gift to generations past and present that does not have the same widespread acceptance in other parts of this great country. <\/p>\n

I firmly believe there is no such thing as a \u201ctrue\u201d immigration story.<\/p>\n

Many, if not most, immigrants are leaving something painful behind \u2014 maybe it\u2019s family, maybe it\u2019s war or abuse. But carrying that burden forward with nothing more than hope to balance it, passing it on to future generations, explaining it to strangers, is too much. So immigration stories get softened over time, with trauma turning into adventure and hard facts blurred into entertaining myths.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t make the tellers liars. It makes them human. <\/p>\n

In the case of my father\u2019s myth, he would have told you that his journey to America started with Humphrey Bogart. As a teen, he\u2019d cut school to watch black-and-white movies like \u201cCasablanca\u201d in a theater in Ahmedabad in northern India, so long ago that there was an intermission to change the film reels. Enamored of white tuxedos and cool blondes, he started applying to scholarships for college in America \u2014 eventually winning a full-ride at a Utah school for his skiing acumen, a sport for which he claimed great skill but in reality had never tried. <\/p>\n

My aunts and uncles variously dispute or embrace this tale, which my father loved to tell. I don\u2019t know how true it is, but I do know this. My father\u2019s journey to the U.S. did not begin with Bogart. It began in the city of Karachi, which was in India until the British drew a line on the map and created Pakistan. War broke out, with Hindus killing Muslims and Muslims killing Hindus. My father, a kid, got lost in a crowd with his grandfather. He watched as a mob killed his grandpa, then escaped by himself walking hundreds of miles to safety. He was eventually reunited with his family in a refugee camp, but his India was gone forever. <\/p>\n

In its place, he dreamed of Bogart\u2019s America. And when he finally got here, he buried his past under the Utah snow, became such a good skier he was on ski patrol, and didn\u2019t mention his grandpa for nearly 35 years. <\/p>\n

Like nearly every child of an immigrant, I love both the truth and the myth of my dad because combined they are the story of my family and of America. But my father was Indian and eventually settled in Ohio, much different than California. There was no larger Indian community back then (though it\u2019s grown significantly<\/a>, including dozens of family members who followed my father), and little tolerance for anything but assimilation. That was fine by my father. He wanted nothing more than to be American<\/a> \u2014 though he would remain a green card holder for decades, until fear under the first Trump administration pushed him to get citizenship. <\/p>\n

Hilton\u2019s audience<\/p>\n

Just like for Becerra\u2019s dad, being an immigrant was a state of mind for mine, an experience, not an official status. Had my dad been in California, maybe he would have kept more of his Indian identity. Had Becerra\u2019s dad been in Ohio, maybe he would have kept less of his past. <\/p>\n

Neither viewpoint made either man more or less American \u2014 but the different myths these two men told about who they were define the difference between California and the rest of the country. <\/p>\n

Hilton\u2019s attack on Becerra\u2019s dad was never meant for a California audience<\/a>, where the Latino experience of fluidity in geography and identity holds center stage. It was always meant for places such as Ohio, and Fox News, where the expectation of assimilation still reigns supreme (just ask the Haitians of Springfield) and where Hilton\u2019s media audience \u2014 and his future \u2014 resides after he loses in November, which he almost certainly will. Hilton, after all, was the host of his own conservative television show<\/a> for years. <\/p>\n

What seems like an out-of-touch attack by Hilton on brown immigrants in California is actually thoughtful pandering to his people \u2014 the right-wing Americans who prefer \u201cgood,\u201d deferential, grateful immigrants (like Hilton himself) over the confident California Latinos who take pride in every part of their identity.<\/p>\n

Sorry, California Latinos, but this MAGA moment in immigration has nothing to do with criminal records or even legal status. It\u2019s all about attitude, and MAGA hates that you have so much of it. Hilton\u2019s attack hits the target with his right-wing crowd because, to them, not centering his father\u2019s U.S. citizenship is a rejection of the United States, a treachery they not-so-secretly fear all immigrants share. <\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the twist \u2014 MAGA is right, immigrants are complicated. <\/p>\n

My dad may have been one of the \u201cgood\u201d immigrants, embracing all things American and quiet about his past. But he always held deep pride in his family and his origins, and he passed that on \u2014 as do so many of the other \u201cgood\u201d immigrants. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible, common even, to fully embrace being American while also valuing the myths and truths of immigration. It\u2019s possible to to love this country while also keeping another one in your heart, loudly or quietly. There is no one immigrant experience, no one way to be a real American. Hilton, an immigrant and the son of immigrants, surely knows this. <\/p>\n

But where immigrants see complexity, MAGA followers see only perfidy, disloyalty, and that makes them afraid and angry \u2014 and ripe for the exploitation of those emotions by someone who can sugarcoat it, twist it, just enough to seem reasonable. <\/p>\n

And Hilton is excellent at seeming reasonable. <\/p>\n

What else you should be reading:<\/p>\n

The must-read: California wine glut sends premium bottles to Costco, Aldi and Kroger at bargain prices<\/a>
The California angle: Denise Brown recalls her sister Nicole\u2019s abuse by O.J. Simpson: \u2018We were there\u2019<\/a>
The L.A. Times Special: The LAPD busted a secret network of brothels \u2014 but hasn\u2019t arrested the owner<\/a>
Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria<\/p>\n

\u2014
Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here<\/a> to get it in your inbox. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SACRAMENTO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Over the last week, gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton has created the exact kind of media kerfuffle he loves…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2208,7,9,8,2212,2210,2216,2209,2213,418,2220,2221,2219,2218,2211,2217,2214,2215],"class_list":["post-490334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-biden","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-court-pick","tag-essential-politics","tag-first-black-woman","tag-gender","tag-high-court","tag-history","tag-jefferson","tag-media-coverage","tag-nominee","tag-political-criticism","tag-race","tag-stereotypes","tag-supreme-court","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}