OWNERSHIP OF CALIFORNIA

Jose V. Soto’s use of the “racism” (letter, Aug. 6) is an example of the pot calling the kettle black. “They” (i.e. illegal aliens) never “owned” California. They descendants of people who lived in Mexico during the brief time in history (1821-1848) that Alta California was a province of that country. This hardly represents a claim of ownership. The aristocratic Spanish-speaking people in California (only about 20,000 at the time of the Gold Rush) did not consider themselves Mexicans, but Californios. If prior inhabitancy by one’s ancestors is the primary reason for claiming “ownership” of California, then it belongs to the Amerasian tribes who lived here for thousands of years before anyone spoke Spanish.

ROBERT DEVILLE

Claremont

*

I commiserate with Roberta Gilliam (“Some Are Embittered by Fate of Prop. 187,” Aug. 2). I’m certain that after Thomas O. Larkin (Monterey’s American consul in 1884) had corrupted Mexican officials, after John A. Sutter had subverted Mexico’s laws by illegally parceling out lands of California to Americans and after Commodore Thomas Ap Catesby Jones led a landing force (October 1842) that raised the American flag on public property in Monterey (while the two countries were at peace), there must have been at least some Mexicans who said (or thought) exactly what Gilliam did: We’re in the middle of an invasion.”

By 1845, when about 1/10th of the non-Native American population was American, I’m equally certain there must have been at least a few Mexicans who shared her other sentiment when she said, “Shoot ‘em. Shoot illegals at the border. If people knew they going to get shot dead they wouldn’t come.”

I guess it’s true! What goes around, comes around.

JOSE D. GOMEZ-GALAN

Cypress