Soccer and politics: Mexican-Americans

Raśl Escalante of Mexico comments on my question about Mexican-Americans' loyalties when they root for Mexico, sometimes violently, in US-Mexico soccer matches:

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1. Most first-generation immigrants who leave their countries unwillingly due to hardships they faced there , hold deep sentimental ties to their former homelands. My intuition tells me that these feelings run deeper among either Catholic or Latin cultures (Ireland during the great famine, Sicily, Spain during the Civil War, etc.).

2. When the culture of the home country is difficult to assimilate into because of racial, religious or other factors, this reinforces cultural bonds that would otherwise be weak. Thus, indigenous people in Chiapas or Oaxaca who would rarely describe themselves as Mexicans in their homeland, readily do so abroad; African immigrants from tribes that are at each others' throats or who are thousands of kilometers apart, find common ground in recipient countries. This reinforcement eventually makes assimilation (and obviously a change of loyalty) more difficult.

3. Racism in the US is sadly still pervasive. Many Latin American immigrants harbor strong (and often justifiable) resentments against what they perceive as multiple standards in American culture and institutions. The claim of universal equality comes across as hypocritical. The reality of life in the US doesn't match expectations built by - among other things - public diplomacy.