There are certain things your parents teach you, whether they realize it or not, that will always stick with you. For me, my mom has always been a strong believer in carrying your composure as a young lady and that there is a correct way to present yourself to the world.
But it always slipped away as soon as the soccer game’s announcer fired comments faster than shots at the crossbar. My mom’s heart would beat louder and everyone around her could hear it in her blood curdling screams. Even when Mexico’s team wasn’t the best, you could have sworn it was, with her victory cackles and energetic dances following a goal.
Growing up, soccer was the way I learned pride in my cultural identity. For many immigrants and their children, sports aren’t just a beloved pastime but a safe space for celebrating their identities.
Soccer wasn’t always a love match for me. When you are a little kid who gets red over every single thing, you turn into a human highlighter as you can hear your parents shrieking down the street. Especially when their screams are in a language you know your neighbors might not understand. I remember getting my own workouts in cheering and secretly speed walking backward to shut the door with my little sister.
Despite my childhood being planted in San Diego, a city no stranger to their fronterizo neighbors, I still grew that sixth sense every POC kid gets. A sense that kept me cautious of tendencies and behaviors that could out me as an “other” or just make me seem “weird.” A common experience that goes hand in hand with finding ways to become more palatable to the society around us.
But as I grew to expect the screams, my own gripping of the couch graduated to throwing pillows towards the referees’ bad calls. And I found soccer to be a safe space where I could be as loud as I needed to celebrate my cultural roots with the sport I loved.
As someone who grew up in the United States, this was a space I desperately needed. Like other kids of immigrants, there’s always an “in between-ess” to your identity that gets overly dealt with.
Are you Mexican or American? Even when I seemed to fulfill all the prerequisites to claiming my own identity, I always fell short in a way that made me feel that I couldn’t lay claim to being Mexican.
But when I joined in on watching soccer matches, no one doubted my passion and love for Mexico. It was these loud and vibrant moments that didn’t need much said, but brought me into my community. I was just Mexican enough.
And my appreciation of soccer didn’t just bring me a camaraderie within my own community, but the people in the world around me. When you go to a sports bar or anywhere with people clad in jerseys and death grips onto their emotional support of choice, everyone shares the same screams and crazy eyes. No matter how weird I felt in my outbursts that stemmed from pride, fans from opposing teams shared this same understanding.
A lot of times in my life, acceptance has had to come at the expense of assimilation. But in my love for soccer, I have never had to censor who I am.
There were many times I was reminded of this lesson in a way that came from pauses in the game. And careful attention to players across sports teams. I still grew up with the experience of pointed fingers and distasteful talk of latinos in the media as well as other minority and immigrant communities.
But I would always recover a sense of hope when news stories would switch to features or mentions of famous athletes. Sports in the media became one of the few, if only, places I could count on positive representation for people of color. And their identity was never hidden or quietly mentioned, but proudly shared and credited in their professional lives.
My mom taught me how I will always present myself to the world. In life, I have needed to be passionate and proud about who I am to make my time count in all my pursuits. And when it comes to celebrating my identity, I need to crack open that door a bit more for the world to hear.
