Romney’s roots run deep into Mexico, remain there still

Gaskell Romney, Mitt Romney’s grandfather, settled in Mexico as well, and Mitt Romney’s father, George Romney, was born in nearby Colonia Dublan - raising the possibility of a 2012 presidential race between two contenders whose fathers were born outside the United States.

The story of Mitt Romney’s family in Mexico is not well-known or frequently mentioned by the candidate, who is widely viewed as the front-runner for the Republican nomination. But the extraordinary lives of Romney’s ancestors, and the current struggles of his relatives against Mexico’s brutal criminal gangs, present a significantly more complex family portrait than the all-American image of Romney with his wife, Ann, and their five sons.

Like President Obama, Romney has a family tree that crosses borders and cultures, and a genealogy that does not unfold neatly from a Mayflower landing or a dogged immigrant’s tale. His forebears came to the United States for spiritual reasons, but had to flee a generation later, finding the freedom they were looking for in Mexico.

Forthright, horse-smart, and stubborn - these are the qualities that helped Miles Park Romney build Colonia Juarez, and that Mitt Romney would bring to the White House, said his cousin Kent Romney, a peach farmer who makes fishing lures and is possibly the only person in Mexico with a Chihuahua license plate and a “Mitt Romney for President’’ sticker on his pickup.

Like the older generation of Romneys here, Kent is Mitt Romney’s second cousin, and although he has donated to Mitt Romney’s campaigns, he has never met the candidate. Nor has Mitt Romney been to visit Colonia Juarez and Kent’s home, built more than 100 years ago by their great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney.

From Kent’s porch, one can look up the street to the gleaming white Mormon temple on the hill and across to the red-brick buildings of the town’s private English-language Mormon academy. About a third of the town’s 500 or so residents are of Anglo descent.