We know that is not true. I think it's clear that Manuel Becerra was not an immigrant to the U.S. He was born in Sacramento on July 14, 1928. According to Xavier, his family later moved to Tijuana, but his obituary says he returned to California as a young teenager (15?) and lived with relatives. His 1946 draft registration then places 18-year-old Manuel at 703 4th Street in Sacramento, working as ranch labor, while identifying his father, Heliodoro Becerra, in Tijuana. By the 1950 census, Manuel is again documented in Sacramento, this time living with his Mexican-born parents, Heliodoro and Otilia Becerra, at 298 N. 10th Street. So the records establish Manuel's presence in California years before his 1953 marriage. His mother's story is where it gets especially interesting. Teresa Schmidt is documented entering the U.S. at Nogales on June 13, 1943, at age 11, accompanied by her mother, Margarita Schmidt Pérez. Her grandmother, María Pérez, is identified as the departure contact. I have searched for another border crossing that would support Becerra's statement that his mother came here at 18, and thus far, I haven't found one. Does that prove Teresa lived continuously in the U.S. from 11 onward? No. Absence of another crossing record cannot prove continuous residence. But there are now two pieces of circumstantial evidence pointing in that direction; we have her documented entry at 11 with no subsequent entry yet located, and Becerra himself has said his father was “more immigrant than my mom” because Manuel spoke Spanish ... while his mother spoke English ... @CBSNews. That statement makes considerably more sense if Teresa spent a substantial number of formative years in the U.S. I understand that personally. I come from legal immigrant parents and learned English at eight years old. I can read, write, and speak both languages, but my English is stronger than my Spanish. A child entering at 11 could likewise become highly proficient in English through schooling and everyday life here. Meanwhile, Manuel's documented history runs in the opposite direction: born in Sacramento, taken to Tijuana as a child, educated there through roughly the sixth grade, and then returned to California as a young teenager. His stronger Spanish, therefore, makes perfect sense without turning him into an immigrant. So my working hypothesis is that Teresa may have remained in the U.S. for at least a substantial portion of the period after her documented 1943 entry at age 11. I have not located another entry for her, although school records, city directories, or other contemporary evidence would be needed to conclusively establish continuous residence. There is another piece of the family history worth mentioning. Teresa Schmidt's maternal grandfather was Hermann Schmidt, from Berlin, Germany, identified in the Mexican civil record as a mechanical engineer. Her mother was Margarita Schmidt Pérez, and Margarita's 17-year-old brother, José Schmidt, appears as a witness to her marriage. This is a documented German branch of Becerra's ancestry, not speculation based merely upon the surname. That makes something Becerra said during the gubernatorial debate particularly interesting. Speaking directly to @SteveHiltonx, he said: “You seem to welcome immigrants who look like you, but deport immigrants who look like me.” @CNN My question is: what exactly does “immigrants who look like me” mean genealogically? Becerra was born in Sacramento. His father, Manuel, was also born in Sacramento. His mother was born in Mexico, but her documented ancestry includes the Schmidt family and a grandfather from Berlin. None of that makes Becerra any less Mexican-American, but neither does “Mexican” automatically mean Indigenous. If Becerra was referring broadly to Latino appearance or to how Latino Americans may be perceived during immigration enforcement, that's a political argument he can make. But if he was implying something about his own Indigenous ancestry, that's a genealogical proposition, and I'd like to see the genealogy. So far, the records we've uncovered tell a considerably more complicated Mexican-German-American story than the simplified public narrative suggests. And that's what makes the original story so puzzling. The real family history is compelling enough: an American-born father, raised partly in Mexico, who returned to California as a teenager and worked farm, railroad, and construction jobs, and a Mexican-born mother whom we can document entering the U.S. at 11. There is no genealogical need to turn that into a simpler story of “two immigrants” arriving here to marry.