Translation of legitimar

for a minute I blamed the burger that I had eaten at the duty free back in Cancun, but thinking a little further I recalled eating street food the night earlier, as it was Mexican independence day.
While time is a great healer, it is very difficult and not necessarily advisable for a country to forget its past, therefore history always keeps the tensions to others alive. I will explain.
This province was only one mile away from China and one could see the border control. From there it was a bus ride up the hill, about an hour or so passed and we arrived at our final destination.