Ephraim » While British and Scandinavian heritage is honored at the city cemetery, Latinos will have to go south to hoist their flag.
The city's cemetery board recently rejected a proposal from the Snow College Hispanic Student Association to fly a Mexican flag along side those of the United States, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland at the cemetery -- even though Latinos are buried there.
Councilman Terry Lund, who also sits on the cemetery board, said the city will allow Latinos -- or any other ethnic group for that matter -- to display their nation's flag at the Canyon View Park, which is still under construction.
Lund said the students are ignoring the history of the flag monument. It was designed, he said, to represent the city's founders, not those who came in later.
"It's like building a roller-skate park, and then someone with motorcycles comes along and says, 'Hey, that would a good place to jump motorcycles,'" Lund said.
Ironically, the area was part of Mexico until the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848. Anglo pioneers didn't settle Ephraim until a few years later; it was incorporated in 1868.
The Latino student group had presented officials with a petition asking for a Mexican flag at the cemetery to reflect the area's growing Latino population.
English Brooks, the student association's adviser, and Marsha Morales, an association member, say Latinos are as much a part of this Sanpete County community as Scandinavians and Britons.
"[Latinos] are making a difference. The are helping the city grow," Morales said.
The 2000 U.S. census estimated that Ephraim's population was 9.9 percent Latino. A new number won't be available until the 2010 Census.
Asked Brooks: "If the flags represent distinct cultural groups, shouldn't there be room for a flag of a culture that had, and continues to have, a long established cultural influence in Ephraim?"
Practices such as dry-land irrigation and rodeo trace their roots back to Mexico, Brooks said.
Lund, meanwhile, said the student association seemed to accept the Canyon View Park proposal, which could be home to any other group's national flag -- as long as they paid for it.
But Morales said the student club isn't ready to strike its colors yet.
"We are going to try next year," Morales said. And she said the club will try to get more people, especially residents, to sign the petition.
