California Contradiction

THE MATTERHORN IS the best ride in Disneyland. That's what I thought when I discovered the phantasmal bobsled journey through the mountain of rock and ice, on my first visit to the Magic Kingdom. My first trip to California at age 12 was a lot like my favorite ride--a blur of all things wondrous and exciting. After I left the Golden State, I vowed to move there as soon as I grew up. For the seven years since then, the state always conjured up visions of sun and surf, stucco and success.

This vacation I returned. I just wanted to make sure I had made the right decision in sixth grade. After all, that's also when I saw Harvard on a T.V. show and decided to come here.

December 17. San Diego. The sun still shone as bright as I remembered it. The ocean was just as blue, the flowers just as bright, the mountains just as tall, the palms just as exotic. The sunsets were even better than expected.

But in addition to the awe inspiring landscape, there was more to contemplate than on the first trip. My analytic mind was forced into head-to-head combat with my childhood dream of paradise. The dream was bruised, the mind was mellowed. And I'm still moving to California.

THE STUCCO RANCHES in an exclusive area north of San Diego looked just as I remembered--huge mansions surrounded by acres of rocky terrain, orange groves, horse corrals and swimming pools. In the town center I saw a dozen real estate brokers trying to peddle these multi-million dollar insulated retreats, where one never has to contemplate neighbors or lawn mowing or noise. But this time I saw more than just the ranches--I found what makes the luxurious lifestyle possible.

Slave labor. On every ranch, in every spacious home, in every garden, by every poolside, they are there. Mexican workers to pick up after the children, the horses, the fallen oranges. Mexican workers to keep the dirt away from the million-dollar lifestyle that these Californians have bought into.

Whenever I leaned back before a large lunch, with remote control to the VCR in hand and a view of the grassy corral out the window, I remembered to look in the hallway. Sure enough the Mexican cleaning woman was lurking in the shadows, perched on a set of drawers and gobbling down her bag lunch. She would never accept my invitation to join me at the table, she only smiled.

Nor would she stay in the house after she left it sparkling clean. Instead she waited in her beat-up Chevy until her husband--the gardner--finished his work.

Everyone I spoke with had a Mexican maid and gardner. Most people dealt with Mexicans only in their capacity as hired hands. And so the Mexicans on the street were regarded as a subservient lower class.

Driving with friends along a Hollywood highway, I heard a tirade against bad drivers. Or, as they called them, "Those stupid Mexicans." A Spanish street sign gave way to a discussion about the prevalence of Spanish-speaking people in parts of southern California. Or as they called them, "Those stupid Mexicans."

I STILL ENJOYED rambling around the ranch homes and orange groves. But now I also noticed the ever-present Mexican workers who were tidying up the yard and picking the fruit. Life wouldn't be so relaxed for the lucky ranch dwellers without the sweat of their hired labor. They probably wouldn't even live there without the Mexicans to pick up after them.

The independence, the gorgeous homes and the groomed land--all parts of my dream future were made possible by a system relying on a subservient race to do the dirty work.

When I went to Disneyland, I noticed that the Matterhorn was made of synthetic rock and plastic ice. The snow on top of the mountain was really paint. I heard the rollercoaster mechanism groan under the weight of the moving bobsled, and I glimpsed electrical wiring behind the abominable snowman in the middle of the mountain. But like the ranches, from far off the Matterhorn looked as good as I remembered it.