Marsha Morales and her fellow members of Snow College's Hispanic Student Association petitioned the city of Ephraim to include a Mexican flag in its cemetery along with the flags of the United States, Britain and the Scandinavian nations from which some early Mormon pioneers emigrated. Terry Lund, city councilman and cemetery board member, denied the request. Why? Because Mexicans didn't help found the city ("Ephraim won't add Mexican flag to heritage memorial," Tribune , May 23). Or did they?

On Feb. 2, 1848, representatives of the sovereign nation of Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that formally ended the Mexican-American War and ceded 525,000 square miles to the United States, including what would later become the great state of Utah. So Mexicans may not have had a direct influence in the founding of Ephraim, but by signing over the territory where Ephraim would later be settled, Mexico did make it possible for Ephraim to be born as a legitimate American city.

Prior to that, all Utah settlements, notably those in the Salt Lake Valley, were technically unlawful encroachments on Mexican soil by a bunch of disenfranchised, uninvited and illegal American immigrants.

Joe Puente

Moroni


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