Readers React: The silly idea of uniting Baja and Alta California

To the editor: Allow me to apologize to columnist Gustavo Arellano.

When he wrote a piece advocating voting rights for noncitizens, including immigrants in the country illegally, I took him for a fool. But now that you actually published his suggestion that we unite the two Californias — our state and Mexico’s Baja California — into one political entity, I realize he’s a super intelligent guy who placed a bet on just how gullible his editors at the Los Angeles Times can be.

I congratulate Arellano.

Ivan Goldman, Redondo Beach

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To the editor: Arellano’s idea of enlarging California is much more reasonable than Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper’s proposal of splitting it into three states.

When the U.S. battled Mexico from 1846-48, President James K. Polk would have liked the annexation of Baja California to be included in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. That would have prevented future conflicts between the two nations’ borders.

We engineered the Gadsden Purchase in 1853, acquiring even more land from Mexico. Why can’t we negotiate a “Baja Buy” for 2018? We’d have one less border wall to worry about.

Gerald P. Lunderville, Long Beach

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