This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

In the course of researching Mitt Romney, I ran across shocking information. Stuff that could shake his campaign for president right to its foundation. All that embarrassing stuff about Mormonism and polygamy is nothing compared to this latest revelation.

Mitt is the son of a Mexican.

In fact, he comes from a long line of Mexicans.

In the late 1800s, when the pressure was on Mormon polygamy, several families left for a place where they could worship, and marry, according to their conscience. Mexico's laissez faire style of governing appealed to these religious Pilgrims from el norte.

Their Plymouth Plantation was nine farming communities that came to be known as The Colonies. Unlike the modern polygamist havens along the Utah-Arizona border, these towns maintained a strong connection to the mother church in Salt Lake City.

Two of the nine towns still remain and look like a little bit of La Verkin plopped down in Latin America.

In 1884, Miles Park Romney moved his family south to avoid being tossed in the state penitentiary in Sugar House. Gaskel Romney, born in St. George in 1871 to Miles' first wife (he would eventually have five) married Anna Amelia Pratt. Mitt's father, George Romney, was born in 1907 in Colonia Dublan, Galeana, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua.

The family came north for good in 1912 to escape the troubles stirred up by the Mexican Revolution.

But wait, you say, isn't this George Romney, the Romney who was governor of Michigan, saviour of American motors, father of the Rambler, and one-time candidate for president himself? A Mexican illegal?

I said nothing about illegal. George Romney came by his citizenship honestly, having been born to American parents. But it did raise some knotty constitutional questions during his run for the presidency in 1968 when critics questioned whether his Mexican roots disqualified him as a "natural-born citizen."

I would advise the Romney camp to let it all hang out. There is nothing wrong with being Mormon or having polygamous ancestors.

There also is nothing wrong with being Mexican.

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* PAT BAGLEY is the editorial cartoonist for The Salt Lake Tribune.