For my entire adult life, I’ve looked on in disturbed bemusement as too many Southern Californians freaked out every time Mexican Americans expressed love for their ancestral and natal love through soccer.
I laughed as local media couldn’t understand why so many of them booed when then-California Gov. Pete Wilson inaugurated the first match of the 1994 World Cup at the Rose Bowl, a year where he rode anti-immigrant sentiment to reelection. I shook my head in 1998 after 91,000 fans booed the U.S. soccer squad in a Gold Cup match at the Coliseum that Mexico won 1-0, and all U.S. star Alexi Lalas could pull from that was that Latinos were treasonous ingrates.
“I would never be caught dead cheering for any other team than the United States because I know what it’s given me,” he told The Times after the game.
The anger and befuddlement was reflective of an era where demographics were changing in Southern California and longtimers didn’t like it one bit. It also emerged at a time when U.S. Soccer was finally establishing a respectable team — and realizing that no matter how great a squad and tradition it could establish, it would never eclipse the love diasporas have for their heritage soccer squads.
Lalas is now the boorish American face of Fox Sports’ not-bad World Cup coverage. I don’t care enough for him to know if his attitude has evolved nearly 30 years after his pendejo words — but Southern California definitely has. And how the media has covered Southern California’s reaction to Mexico’s thrilling Mundial run proves it.
Instead of treating all the watch parties and spontaneous after-match celebrations across Southern California as anti-American affronts, reporters are covering it as not just a natural response but a righteous one a year after continual ICE raids left most of Latino areas empty. Television stations that dispatch helicopters over joyous scenes in Santa Ana, Huntington Park, East Los Angeles and so many other places across the Southland are treating the celebrations like they would a Lakers or Dodgers championship instead of something foreign.
Instead of writing pieces having to explain why so many Mexican Americans are rooting for El Tri, Latino reporters are getting into the intricacies of the fandom — explainers on Merlin (the duck who has emerged as Mexico’s unofficial mascot) and the significance of the slogan ‘¿Y si sí?’ (“And what if we can?”) and listicles on where the best watch parties are. People can wear La Verde — the nickname now affixed to Mexico’s soccer jersey — without drawing a second glance or politicians railing about it.
Why, even this viejo columnista — who will never forget all the hate mail he received during the 2002 World Cup for writing a columna for the late, great Pacific News Service about why he was rooting for Mexico — was able to write about finally trying to memorize Mexico’s national anthem in his day job.
All of this is another important milestone in a Southern California that truly embraces all of its diversity at all times — yay us!
Media coverage can, of course, switch toward the negative the moment those celebrations turn too crazy, like when Huntington Park police arrested 31 fans in 1998 after Mexico advanced to the knockout phase of that summer’s World Cup. But the desmadre so far has been mostly incident-free. Let’s see what happens after tonight’s England-Mexico match.
