9.11.2007

Bill Richardson -- American and U.S. Citizen

Some countrymen believe the U.S. is a European nation--and that immigration policy should preserve it as such. That belief may explain why, for example, they demand a wall against Mexico but not Canada. But the truth is that the U.S. is an American nation. It's American in the same way that Mexico, Cuba, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, et al, are all part of the hemispheric American family.

Walls nor armies can make disappear the realities of geography and blood lines. The future of the U.S. is woven into the expanding narrative of the Americans from Tierra del Fuego to Baffin Island.

Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico and a 2008 Presidential Candidate, embodies this reality.

Richardson (whose given name is William Blaine Richardson III) was born in Pasadena, California. His mother, María Luisa López-Collada Márquez, is Mexican. His father, William Blaine Richardson Jr., was a naturalized American (being the son of an American father and Mexican mother) banker who grew up in Nicaragua.

The following is a video of Richardson telling the story of his parents immigration to the United States for his birth.


No comments:

Post a Comment