I wrote a guest post at the Good Men Project on my unusual feelings every time the US and Mexico square off. As a chicano with fair-skinned guero-itis, my life has been a series of chameleon assimilation acts, with the star confused as to his real persona. When the US and Mexico face off, I am forced to pull off mask after mask. Inevitably, the audience is disappointed when there’s nothing left to look at. The sensation on the eve of this “rivalry” is not so much pedaling a paddle boat against a downriver current, but rather a riptide tugging my legs towards the deep sea while the surface pulls my arms ashore. Inevitably, I sit on the fence and am rendered a neutered neutral. When a team scores, I want to shout with joy and then shout in anger. But I remain silent.
How bad does it get? I actually used to wear a Landon Donovan jersey for one half and a Rafa Marquez jersey for the other. Then my little brother stole my Rafa Marquez jersey. Now I wear neither.
That stuff aside, it was a helluva game with great goals. We can all get sad that the US didn’t play a super defensive game plan, but a look at the age and experience of the US defenders will show why Bradley gambled on Dempsey, Donovan, and Adu to outscore the opposition. And since when is positive soccer a negative? Read more here.
I feel you bro. Racial alienation is such a drag.
Well, as an immigrant myself (not to mention obviously “brown”) but not Latino or Chicano, I want to know whether you think the tension between fans only going to get worse as either team tries to progress.
Is this something that needs to have some kind of “real” resolution, with fans on both sides getting educated about being more sensitive to the other side and whatnot — or a policing issue like many football rivalries around the world?
Admittedly, as someone who has done some academic work around these sensitive cultural issues, I don’t really see people getting enlightened on anything quickly.
Andy -
it’s totally a downer. Especially at social gatherings.
Paula -
I have no reason to believe it will get any better, aside from the hundreds of conversations I’ve had with rational fans from both sides.
What I find interesting about the stadium experience is that inappropriate behavior by fans has plagued so many other parts of the world, like Italy, England, and South America, but now that it’s filtered into the US, where we have a history of rival fans sitting peacefully among one another, people take notice and are up in arms. I love the American stadium experience – it’s a balance between family friendly and kinda passionate. In other countries, though, it’s assumed that only the crazies will go to see a game in person and thus normal people should watch at a bar or from home. I think long-term, the US experience will win out. However, short term, I’m not so optimistic.
Here’s why – if sport is a microcosm of society, then lots of Hispanics will use the US-Mexico game as a springboard for vengeance both metaphorically on the pitch and literally off it. The US is the bipolar pretty lady (or crazy motorcycle guy to use the similar male metaphor) to a lot of people in poor Latin American countries – on the one hand, she (or he) is good looking in that she (or he) offers a higher quality of life and unfathomable job opportunities. On the other hand, Ellis Island has been shunned for consular processing and complex applications that only the elite abroad can understand or afford an attorney to understand. But American business needs cheap labor, so she will see us on the side and at sketchy dive bars if nobody else is around. As long as the US sends these wicked mixed signals of 1) Come and find work and 2) Racial profile and deport, then a festering permanent underclass with limited opportunities for social mobility will have some resentment.
On an even more disturbing note, an LA dodgers fan killed a SF Giants fan at a baseball game. I know people had some serious grievances for the US-Mexico game, but other sports have issues too. Yet nobody has made issues of race or explored those factors for the Giants killing. It’s assumed the guy was just a crazy. But we don’t easily dismiss lesser incidences at a US-Mexico game because? because? because? I’ve had friends at the last two Gold Cup finals, wearing USMNT jerseys, and with no problems at all. Several years ago I drove with friends to Alabama to catch a US qualifier vs. El Salvador (?) and the stadium was packed with Salvadorians. I donned my jersey, but skirted away from drunk and rowdy men. In fact, I do that at football games. And baseball games. And I haven’t had too many problems.
On a “solutionary” note, if people are serious about cracking down on this stuff, then they will only play important games at state of the art facilities with cameras and easily viewed seating assignments for each individual (so guards can remove rowdy fans). The Rose Bowl has a glorious atmosphere, but is a bit antiquated.
As someone who’s new to sports fandom, soccer in particular, and as a woman suspicious of any arena dominated by masculine displays most of the time, there’s a lot of context I don’t know. There are a lot of times when I’ve been apprehensive about going to unknown bars and pubs because I was afraid of being one of the few women or not having too many loud drunk uber-fans. But just because there are contexts and behaviors I’m uncomfortable with doesn’t mean they are inherently wrong.
So, I don’t tend to view the international football fan behavior (short of fan-on-fan violence) as being bad or good — it just varies based on what people expect to get away with. I tend to think that American NT fans have one expectation of fan behavior that’s clashing with other football cultures’ expectations, where booing anthems is not a big deal. (And having been to concerts where people have jostled and spilled beer on me, I know that inebriated excitement is often rude but not necessarily personal.)
On that note, you are more optimistic than I about the long-term relationship between Yanks and El Tri fans. because it just seems to me like Americans’ various issues with immigration (and vice versa) writ small, with soccer being a mere excuse to rant about other stuff. And who wants to predict when America’s long history of immigrant bashing will end?
“But we don’t easily dismiss lesser incidences at a US-Mexico game because? because? because?”
Point taken. But I tend to think it’s the stereotype that a lot of Americans have of “foreigner” soccer being a sport that produces this kind of tension. Lakers-Celtics in the 70s, sure, hip-hop and the NBA now, but by and large most Americans don’t like to see the socioeconomic biases in their, um, sports.
OK, I’m out. Thanks for the conversation!