Prop. 187 Votes

Re Joel Kotkin’s article, “The North Versus the South,” Opinion, Jan. 18: I strongly object to his sentence, “Although the old xenophobia remains, as evidenced in the county’s strong local support for Proposition 187, UC Irvine pollster Mark Baldassare maintains that the far right now commands the loyalties of less than 20% of the county’s voters.” Proposition 187 garnered nearly 60% of the statewide vote, so it is reckless to imply that all but a very few counties in the state supported Proposition 187 because of xenophobia.

My mother is a naturalized citizen who waited many years to immigrate legally to the United States, and based her vote, as did I, on the issue of fairness. Are she and I to be labeled “far right”? Well, yes, if you mean that we are far more correct about why we cast our votes than Kotkin is, who could be labeled “far wrong.”

ROBERT N. DYKSTRA

San Diego