There is something that isn’t being discussed here. Why are the relatives living in Mexico? I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that perhaps Mitt’s relatives were in Mexico for another reason–polygamy. Utah attempted to gain statehood for several decades. One of the provisions for being admitted to the Union in 1896 was to outlaw polygamy.
I know people now who have relatives living in Mexico. The Mexican government pretty much ignores polygamy. Anyone who has deep Mormon roots probably is descended from polygamists. The Mormons I know accept it as an inside joke but don’t talk about it with outsiders. Most outsiders don’t understand the theological or historical significance.
Perhaps polygamy is the reason that Mitt Romney isn’t touting his Mexican heritage. There isn’t any. They were expatriates living in Chihuahua for a couple of decades until things stabilized. I understand why he doesn’t want to share all this with the world. Then again…maybe I am wrong.
UPDATE:
Apparently I wasn’t wrong. I had this thread written this morning and ready to post when I got home. Starry found the story posted on the open thread. I had not seen it. I just knew from my friends that many polygamists settled in Mexico. Some still go there.
From Starry:
https://www.moonhowlings.net/index.php/2012/01/08/open-thread-sunday-january-9/#comment-131306
He’s not “Mexican American”. His parents were US Citizens living abroad, an neither is of Mexican decent. My son was born in Okinawa Japan, to US Citizens living abroad. I’m Irish, and his mom Filipino. He’s not Japanese-American by birth, citizenship, or heritage.
There are also ‘birthers’ out there speculating. It doesn’t matter what his grandfather is anyway or where is father was born.
One way of looking at it is that he is three times more American :mrgreen:. I offer that anyone descended from those who made that amazing trip across the country in the mid 19th century has doube maybe triple influsion of ‘American’ in them anyway. The story of Utah coming to be and those who originally settled it is just amazing.
@Steve Thomas
I had to laugh. I made the mistake of calling an Okinawan, “Japanese.”
Yeah…… don’t do that.
His parents were legal migrants in Mexico but not Mexican citizens. They had no diplomatic or military status there, which means their children, including Mitt’s father, were, in fact, Mexican citizens. Just like present day legal immigrants from India or wherever whose children are US citizens if born here, but not necessarily citiens of the parents’ home country.
Here is an interesting item from my favorite news source. Evidently polygamy is still written in the book of mormon to this day and Mitt’s recent ancestorswere quite fond of the practice. He probably has dozens of relatives in Mexico.
Polygamy Prominent in GOP Presidential Hopeful Mitt Romney’s Family Tree
While Mitt Romney condemns polygamy and its prior practice by his Mormon church, the Republican presidential candidate’s great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12.
Polygamy was not just a historical footnote, but a prominent element in the family tree of the former Massachusetts governor now seeking to become the first Mormon president.
Romney’s great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, married his fifth wife in 1897. That was more than six years after Mormon leaders banned polygamy and more than three decades after a federal law barred the practice.
Romney’s great-grandmother, Hannah Hood Hill, was the daughter of polygamists. She wrote vividly in her autobiography about how she “used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow” over her own husband’s multiple marriages.
Romney’s great-great grandfather, Parley Pratt, an apostle in the church, had 12 wives. In an 1852 sermon, Parley Pratt’s brother and fellow apostle, Orson Pratt, became the first church official to publicly proclaim and defend polygamy as a direct revelation from God.
Romney’s father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, where Mormons fled in the 1800s to escape religious persecution and U.S. laws forbidding polygamy. He and his family did not return to the United States until 1912, more than two decades after the church issued “The Manifesto” banning polygamy.
“When you read the family’s history, you realize how important polygamy was to them,” said Todd Compton, a Mormon and independent historian who wrote a book about the polygamous life of the church’s founder, Joseph Smith.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,254362,00.html#ixzz1jQaTOb9a
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,254362,00.html#ixzz1jQa6TRsC
That was very interesting, Starry. Hopefully, no one will use this information the wrong way against Mitt Romney. He ceretainly has no control over his roots. I think Mormons have a deeper understanding of this element of the religion than outsiders do.
As for reference to polygamy still being in the Book of Mormon, polygamy is still in the Old Testament. For Mormons, polygamy is a practice of the past. For off-shoots of the religion, fundamentalist mormons, the practice lives on. Once cohabitation became common practice in the United States, it became less easy to prosecute polygamy. I expect people pretty much ignored it, or so I have been told. It is not a practice of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and has not been for the past 111 years.
In any event, it is good that a Mexican American is vying for President against a sitting African American president