When I watch pregame ceremonies at international fútbol matches featuring the Mexican national team, I am pulled back to a small rural school in Nuevo León where I received my earliest education. On special occasions, like the players on the field at the World Cup, the students would stand shoulder to shoulder in front of the colors singing the Himno Nacional. “Mexicanos al Grito de Guerra” is the only line I remember. Yet even now, witnessing it on the world’s biggest stage gives me chills.
The modest two-room school building was constructed out of adobe and stucco. It had a cement foundation, a rarity in an area where the natural ground served as the floor for all structures. An arch entryway and portón leading into a foyer between the classrooms accentuated the mission-style façade. Until I came to Texas, I did not know that the aesthetic of the school was like the Alamo in San Antonio and other buildings in lands throughout the southwest U.S. which my ancestors first inhabited.
During recess, the boys playing fútbol could be followed by the cloud of dust raised by a herd of kids running on the dirt field. Located at the edge of the Chihuahuan desert, grass was non-existent on the school grounds because of the semi-arid climate. Despite the grime, allergies, asthma or ear infections never seemed to be an issue for me and my peers. The only ailments endured then were the result of playing fútbol, like being fulminado—slammed in the face by a speeding ball and suffering a momentary blackout that made a burst of galaxy-like lights dance before our eyes. The teacher would rub our temple repeating sana sana colita de rana, (Heal heal little frog’s tail), a children’s rhyme meant to soothe the pain. Soon thereafter, the game would resume.
Watching the Mexican fútbol team going against European opponents on my television screen also awakens memories of the romanticized tale of Los Niños Heroes (the Boy Heroes of Chapultepec) I received in early elementary school. Mexican children are taught that as armed imperialist aggressors advanced towards the Chapultepec Castle, six teenagers refused to retreat, choosing instead to die defending their military academy that sat strategically atop a 200-foot tall hill. One, according to the lesson, wrapped in the flag, leapt to his death rather than surrender it to the invaders. Similarly, in Texas middle schools, the role of Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie at the Battle of the Alamo exaggerates the fallen hero mythology. Both imaginative accounts of history are meant to instill patriotism but the narratives also underline who belongs and who does not.
It is impossible for me to watch the Mexican fútbol team without noticing that the majority of the players’ faces look like mine. Like most Americans of Mexican origin, I am mestizo, with indigenous, Asian, African and European ancestry. In Mexico, there is a saying: “traes el nopal en la cara”— the cactus shows on your face. It’s a blunt way of pointing out one’s indigenous features. The nopal on Mexico’s coat of arms—where an eagle devours a snake—has become both symbol and shorthand for identity. It cannot be hidden, even if one’s allegiance to the U.S. Constitution is unconditional, mestizos will always be, in part, hijos del sol.
Ultimately, if one is honest, every four years, fútbol reveals an innate bond with faces in whom we see ourselves. For people in the Americas, that bond may extend beyond a single nation, as our origins trace across nearly every continent in the world.
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