Americans Who Hate America: Latino Sports Fans

One of the more interesting aspects of the increasingly Hispanic population of the United States is their dislike of American national teams when they face those of Mexico. This phenomenon has been going on for years when football's (soccer's) Team USA faces--or, more accurately, get its butt whupped--by Mexico in Los Angeles. The scene is always the same: rabidly pro-Mexico crowds emanating mostly from the United States cheer on Mexico and boo America lustily. So we can identify a number of portents about the future: They will vote Democratic given the Republican dislike of amnesty for migrants. They will also root for the team of the country they likely left to be in America. In other words, they are not in America because they have any great love for the downwardly mobile place but because they found it more economically advantageous to be there--at least for now.

With the start of the 2013 World Baseball Classic, the Americans are once again hoping to place in the premier international event for the sport. Inauspiciously, however, the supposedly star-studded American team fell to ignominious defeat to Mexico in its first game. Ho hum, what else is new--just as in soccer, so it is now in baseball. Even more gallingly, the crowds at Chase Field (nee Bank One Ballpark for fellow erstwhile denizens of the Valley of the Sun) were solidly pro-Mexico, anti-America:

Team USA has a lineup full of MVPs and All-Stars, and sent out the reigning NL Cy Young winner for its opening game of the World Baseball Classic. All those hitters couldn't do much of anything against Mexico's string of pitchers and the Cy Young winner fell flat. Now the Americans have to win or they could be headed home after the opening round for the first time at the WBC. Adrian Gonzalaz hit a two-run homer off U.S. starter R.A. Dickey, seven pitchers kept the Americans' bats in check and Mexico rebounded from a disappointing opening loss with a 5-2 win over Team USA in Pool D on Friday night.

''They outplayed us in every area of the game and that is what you get,'' U.S. third baseman David Wright said. ''A pretty convincing win for them.'' Mexico had beaten the Americans before in the WBC, in 2006. But in that win, the Mexicans had already been eliminated and were able to play loose...The Mexicans pulled it off with a nearly flawless game, getting good pitching, solid defense and some timely hits in front of a boisterous, pro-Mexican crowd of 44,256 at Chase Field. 

Catch a glimpse of what Hispanicization means as these "Americans" are definitely in agreement that America stinks pretty badly. Not that Team USA has done much to change that impression in either soccer or even baseball.

For years people around the world have told nosy, meddling Americans "Yankee Go Home!" But nowadays they are finding out that people at home don't welcome them there, either. Such fun, eh, gringos?