Oscar Garza is director of the Specialized Journalism / Arts & Culture graduate program at the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Journalism. He has been a culture writer and editor at KPCC/LAist, Tu Ciudad magazine and the Los Angeles Times.
I should start with a disclaimer: I’m not a huge soccer fan. (For the life of me, I can’t quite grasp the offside rule.) But I have attended a couple of thrilling Los Angeles FC matches, so I get the rabid enthusiasm of fans from countries where soccer is the No.1 sport. And even a lukewarm soccer fan has to admit that living in Los Angeles during the World Cup has been an exhilarating and fascinating experience.
Bars and restaurants are packed with customers from around the world, decked out in a virtual United Nations of team jerseys. Still, one cohort stands out: the wild crowds of local supporters for Mexico’s team.
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Sociologists have long concluded that the strength of a person’s connection to their country of origin is largely determined by generational proximity. A large segment of the 4.8 million Latinos in L.A. County are first-generation Mexicans (born there) and second-gen (U.S.-born residents with at least one foreign-born parent). Their support for Team Mexico is to be expected.
I’m third-generation – my parents were both born in the U.S. My maternal grandparents were born in Mexico (both lived and died in the U.S.), but my paternal grandparents were born here. When I was growing up in Texas, we no longer had relatives who lived in Mexico. Still, my parents were of a generation who called themselves Mexicanos. White people were Americanos. (Even though we were just as American as they were.)
But many California Latinos are, like me, third-generation, and given the outsized support for El Tri in L.A., surely many of them are rooting for Mexico. It’s those people who truly perplex me.
Michael Tubbs
Some might say that they don’t want to support Team USA because that could be interpreted as support for our Republican-led federal government. That’s understandable when President Trump and his MAGA movement have hijacked the notion of patriotism. But you can root for a team and not its national leaders. Iranian expatriates proved as much when they came out in droves and cheered for Team Iran.
I have a good friend who is also from Texas and of Mexican descent (second-gen on his dad’s side). He told me he has in the past castigated fellow Mexican Americans who cheered for Mexico in contests against the U.S. Yet, at a Mexico-South Korea watch party, he wore a “Go Mexico” shirt. When I asked him about the discrepancy, he cited pride in his family’s roots, but he added that if Mexico ends up playing the U.S. in the World Cup, he’ll be cheering for the red, white and blue.
His attitude falls in line with why I believe many Mexican Americans, no matter how far removed they are from Mexico, retain that connection. It provides a cultural comfort blanket that the United States doesn’t provide. I count myself among them, especially when it comes to music and food. (Left to my own devices, I’d eat Mexican food every day. As it is, I come pretty damn close.)
Evelyn G. Alemán
Theater and film director Luis Valdez once said something that resonates with me. He was speaking at an arts conference in the mid-1980s, when multiculturalism was an emerging force in the country. Valdez noted the struggle we were having with what to call ourselves: Mexican American? Chicano? Latino? Hispanic?
“You know what I am?” asked Valdez, who was born in Delano, Calif., a son of migrant farmworkers from Mexico. “I’m an American.” His point? If you don’t claim the privilege, it won’t necessarily be handed to you.
I’ve never been one to wrap myself in the American flag, but I’m grateful for what this nation — for all its flaws — has afforded me. Now, excuse me. A World Cup match is about to start, and I need to make some guacamole and grab a Modelo.
Mexico plays Ecuador on June 30 at 6 p.m.; the United States plays Bosnia-Herzegovina on July 1 at 5 p.m.
