The Strange Case of Bill Richardson’s Birth

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Many of you know that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson formally announced his presidential candidacy yesterday. He’s been effectively running for months now, so this isn’t really news. The only two things of note about the announcement were that Richardson spoke in Spanish and in English, highlighting his roots, and that he made the announcement in California, highlighting that state’s new role as a power base in national politics.

Okay, fine. You already knew Richardson is Hispanic and you already knew California is important. Bet you didn’t know this:

The candidate Mr. Richardson is more formally known as William Blaine Richardson 3d, the grandson on a Boston-born naturalist who had moved his family to Nicaragua in the late 1890s to do research for the Smithsonian Institution. His own father, William B. Richardson Jr., was actually born on a boat heading to Nicaragua and, according to an interview with Mr. Richardson in the Washington Post, always had a complex about not being born in America.

When Mr. Richardson’s father became a banker in Mexico City and married his Mexican secretary, he did not want his son to suffer the same fate.

So, in November 1947, when his mother, Maria Luisa Lopez-Collada Marquez, was pregnant with him, Mr. Richardson’s father sent her on a train to Pasadena where she gave birth before turning around and heading back to Mexico City, where Mr. Richardson was raised before being sent to boarding school in Massachusetts at age 13.

I love it! Richardson is basically an immigrant! I think that is completely awesome — no wonder he has the best line on immigration reform: “No fence ever built has stopped history.”

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PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. The deadline’s almost here. Please help us reach our $150k membership goal by May 31.

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