For some strange reason, an editor at the LA Times gave John Ziegler, an AM radio host, space to make poorly written arguments and turn an enjoyable event like the World Cup to discuss the politics of assimilation.
Ziegler tries to draw links between watching World Cup soccer on Univision, as opposed to ABC or ESPN, and immigration from “the South” (but he really just means Mexico). He writes
THE HEART OF the debate over illegal immigration comes down to the problem of assimilation. For many of us who generally oppose the silent invasion from the south, if those who broke the law to come here acted as if their true loyalties were with the United States, then much of the fire in this highly combustible subject would be doused.
While at first glance it may seem an odd place to find enlightenment on the issue, the local TV ratings for games involving Mexico and the United States in the ongoing World Cup may provide some of the best evidence yet of where Spanish-speaking immigrants’ true loyalties lie. (for the rest)
He then goes on to make some rather lame points. First, he compares the LA broadcast ratings for the first few games Mexico and the US played. The total percentage of households that watched Mexico play in either English or Spanish was 28.1 and 19.8 for the US games. Second, the ratings for the Mexico games were much higher than those for the US games on Univision (21.7 to 11.8).
Ziegler reads these numbers and interprets them to mean that Spanish-speaking immigrants (codeword for Mexicans) have divided loyalties. I told Isa this and she said what I was thinking, “Our loyalties are not divided. They’re all for Mexico.”
Sort of. I ardently cheered for Mexico in all their games. My eyes got watery when I heard the national anthem. I was despondent when el Tri tied Angola, sad that they lost to Portugal but relieved that they advanced to the round of 16, even if it was de pansazo. I didn’t watch the US vs. Czech Republic match because I was at work. I didn’t cry when they lost 3-0 but still cringed. I cheered for the US against Italy and was glad that they tied. I watched Ghana beat the US and didn’t feel bad about it. In fact, I was glad Ghana won.
Can Ziegler be right? Does cheering for el Tri make me anti-assimilation? No. If you want to see my views on assimilation, you might want to look at other indicators. I’m definitely acculturated, but I’m wary of assimilation especially if it means giving up my mother tongue and connection to mis raíces. Still, I can’t deny the fact that I read Ziegler’s op/ed piece in an English language newspaper and am writing this post in English.
Did hoping for Ghana to win in their game gainst the US make me un-American? Nope. It just made me want to see the US not come in first in an important international competition. It’s nice to see an underdog win. By advancing to the round of 16, I’m sure the Ghanaian national team made their people much happier than a round of 16 berth would have made the US. Apparently, everything stopped in Ghana for the game, but people here barely care about the World Cup.
Ziegler may have had numbers, but he had no idea how to make sense of them. This is soccer, not a war. Watching games in Spanish is a simple personal preference.
1) Just because you watch the game on Univision does not mean you are an immigrant. Hell, I’ve watched almost every game on Univision and I was born in the US, am bilingual, and an upright citizen. Okay, I don’t know about the upright part, but I do take my civic duties seriously. But serioulsy, a lot of my Flickr buds agree with me.
2) This isn’t about assimilation or whether or not we’re becoming American. The definition of American should not be confined to cheering for the US team and watching the games in English. To me it is about sports, competition, cheering for the underdog and connecting with people. Cheering for el Tri just feels right.
3) As César (El Más Chingón) wrote in reply to CAD’s question, “real soccer fans know it’s Univision all the way.”
Have you actually watched the games in English? I fully understand both Univision and ABC/ESPN and choose Univision. Why? It’s not because I’m anti-assimilation or want to be more Mexican, it’s simply because the English language broadcasters are boring. They talk about the US as two other teams are playing. They also bring io politics which isn’t something you want to hear about when your mind is on soccer. My friends, Yousef and Mohammad, switched to Univision while watching Mexico vs. Iran because they got tired of the commentators talking about invading Iran. They don’t even speak Spanish, but it was better than ABC. I also noticed while watching Italy vs. US on Univision that ABC was delayed a few seconds. Finally, I had to watch Mexico’s games against Angola and Portugal in English because I don’t have cable TV.
Now, for the reasons I prefer Univision. I like to hear the commentators exuberantly call out “¡goooool!” I love the Coca Cola Borghetti/ice cube commercial and the fact that they show all the games. I can’t stand to hear Spanish names mispronounced and watching Mexico play while listening to the announcer speak Spanish just makes more sense.
Ziegler, it’s fútbol. Es la Copa Mundial. It should be enjoyed in whatever language helps to make the experience better. Para mi, esa idioma es español.
Well then, according to this guy, Dan the Man, un gringo by all means, is not assimilated! Although he doesn’t understand Spanish, he likes the ambiance that Univision provides.
Ziegler’s an idiot. If he’d watched any of the games on Univision, he’d probably be hooked too.
Adding to Geo’s comments above I too agree that Ziegler is an idiot. Obviously, he had nothing better to write about or better yet he is very misinformed about World Cup Soccer. Instead of asking why so many from “south” tuned into Univision he should be asking why so many from the “north” ignore the sport to begin with.
As one who favors baseball (especially the Dodgers) over soccer, I found myself enthralled by the World Cup. The last time I watched soccer…well, during the last World Cup. I agree with everyone, soccer is just better on Univision. A pocho-to-the-max, I found the announcers so much more lively and invigorating, as oppossed to the blokes on ESPN. There was no emotion, no heart, in their announcing (much in the same way there was no heart or emotion in the US team’s playing). I may not have understood more than a few phrases during the games I watched, but damn if the annoncers didn’t make me feel good watching them! I guess we’re just some passionate brown folks…and proud to be!
we would be loyal to the united states if it didn’t want to fuc. us up all the time. sorry if that sounds too upfront. but la neta is, that these anti-mexicano politicians care more about whether our children are speaking english than if they have a healthy diet, good schools, access to health care, and all those things that are really human rights.
i agree with Tin. Even if our allegiance is with El Tri…who cares? Why can’t we have an allegiance to more than one country. This isn’t marriage for crying out loud! It was funny cause at work the cook who is Italian was rooting for Italy, head of maintenance is Portugese was rooting for Portugal and everyone else was rooting for Mexico. As for the univision announcers…they were for sure an upgrade over their ESPN counterparts who call the game as though it was golf..but I would’ve loved to have heard El Perro Bermudez call the Mexican matches
I third the motion that Ziegler is an idiot. He’s writing from a position of wanting to find proof for an idea he’s already decided is correct, and he messed up by using a topic that is obviously foreign to him. I am a football fan to the core (known as futbol in spanish) and have been watching all the games he mentions, yet he keeps seeing the wrong conclusions.
* If you understand English and Spanish you can instantly realize the difference in the broadcasting: Spanish is not only animated, passionate, and exciting, it also has MUCH better analysis of how the game is going, who should be running up the flanks, which player needs to be seated, how they should circulate the ball around. This you do not get on ESPN or ABC.
* I saw the England vs Paraguay game at a British Pub, at one point the announcer starts talking about “Germany has the ball”, no lie! There were instantly boos and demands from the fans present to switch to Univision, mind you, there were not many Latinos present.
* If anything his numbers prove that the USA team has no real followers, no fan base, and do not deserve much attention. I bet more Americans were rooting for Lance Armstrong last year than they were for the US football team. Instead of blaming Mexicans for watching their team play, why not castigate the Americans for ignoring their own? It’s the same excuse they use when taking about “illegal” labor: if the Mexicans didn’t take all those lucrative farmwork jobs then real Americans would take their place. Puras mensadas.
* Univision is broadcasting all the games, for free. If I wanted to see the crucial 3rd game of US vs Ghana in English, who was going to be showing it? Not ABC, too busy with some morning yack-fest, you have to pay for cable, which many people (myself included) refuse to do.
* Fans of the game that live in the US also tend to be fans of the USA team, even despite the teams best efforts to alienate them. I remember Eric “Whine”alda complaining that there were too many Mexicans in LA, I saw Cobi Jones the other day talking about his hatred of the Mexican team: the players on the US team are first and foremost culturally American, and they carry around their contempt for the rest of the world on their sleeves.
* Did you hear NPR call Bruce Arena “Bud Arena”, what a joke! Did you hear that Bush called Bruce before the first game and told him to “give them hell” and Eric Wynalda’s nonsense commentary about thats-the-guy-you-want-on-your-side-when-going-to-war? And they wonder why they have no fans.
* And finally, despite having wanted them to do well in the tournament (just to give the game more exposure) I am glad the US were eliminated. Why? They didn’t play for a win, they waited for a coronation. Only in the Italy game did they put in some effort, other than that, they were a bore to watch and played an insipid game. And they were the cockiest SOB’s I’ve yet to see. Arena was implying it was going to be cakewalk over Ghana. Donovan was bragging about this being the best team ever and how great they were going to do. And when you show such little respect for your opposition you get to eat humble pie, and no Tapatio for you!
Por menso, I give Ziegler a Red Card! EL CHAVO!
Too add to the whole Ziegler being an idiot, Univision supported the U.S. team. I remember the first U.S. game, Fernando Fiore said, “Y ahora todas estamos con nuestra playera de los Estados Unidos.”
I think the most important thing is for Ziegler to get a damn dictionary and realize that there’s a difference between assimilation and acculturation as Cindy points out.
I guess all the Italians in the North End of Boston need to be sent back to il bel paese because after who knows how many years and how many generations, they were still cheering for Italy over the US. You would have thunk that they had assimilated – hell they don’t even speak Italian anymore. But there they were waving their Italian flags, eating their Italian sausages, drinking chianti, and cheering the (cheating) Italian team over the US.
The guy is just another anti-immigration nut, I don’t even know why you take him seriously. If he was really honest in his pursuit of ‘assimilation’ he would look to the military and see what Mexican-Americans are accomplishing there. It is a known fact that Mexicans, as a percentage of the population, are overly represented in the United States military, many giving all for the ‘fight on terror’. Yet you hardly hear these anti-immigration guys do studies on that.
There is no such thing as a ‘pure’ American culture, almost everybody here is American through other means, whether that is Indian, British, African, German, Irish, Italian, or Latin American…and we all, including non-Latin Americans, consider our backgrounds to not be mutually exclusive with the United States, but the very opposite, a melting of it all.
Besides, Soccer itself is a non-USA sport, most people here could give a shit who wins, so his sampling space was biased from the get go.
I loved the comments on this post. You all rock.
Geo,
Dan the Man needs to go back to whatever European country his ancestors are from. If he can’t assimilate several generations later, then he doesn’t belong in America…
Julissa,
I heard the same thing. Ziegler and the people who agree with him, are just looking for some other reason to build a huge wall at the border and keep out all of us fútbol loving Mexicans.
Cuauhtli,
I love baseball too and in my car often prefer to listen to 1330 AM with Jaime Jarrín and Fernando Valenzuela than to any other English-language announcer who is not Vin Scully. I guess not understanding Univision’s commentators was better than getting annoyed with ESPN/ABC.
Tin,
You have a point. With the commentary I feel alienated from “mainstream American society.” I don’t know what that means, but there’s a very good reason why I feel antsy when I’m the only person of color. And it’s because I don’t know if the people I’m with are the kinds who think I need to go back to Mexico.
Gustavo,
“This isn’t marriage for crying out loud!”
Classic. I listened to some of the games on a radio station. I think Andres Cantor called those. He’s the only one I know of who does the really long “goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!” and then repeats it two more times.
Chavo!,
Dude your points are better than mine. I had no idea the announcers made dumb mistakes like the Germany thing during England vs. Paraguay. And yeah, the American players are just not as good looking. Wait. I didn’t write that. I watch the matches for the competition, skill and artistry. Yup yup.
Too bad Ziegler really can’t get a red card and have his mic turned off on AM radio.
Xoloitzquintle,
Oooh, I was mad that Australia was eliminated by that bad call.
I would really like to go back to the North End. The food there was so good…
HP,
I don’t take him seriously, but he was still given space in a major newspaper. Isn’t it enough that dude has his own show on AM radio? You’re right that there are a number of measures of assimilation. Look at me, I like white guys and don’t even like the Mexican men… haha.
OK, I admit to taking pride in my anti-assimilationist politics, even though I’m a big ol’ pocha. (grin)
When the US team is more Chicano then we’ll see who we cheer for.
(One thing I love about the world cup is seeing the post-colonial in action: how many of the european teams are made up of their former colonies?)
Yet more evidence of Anglo panic, and profoundly misunderstanding the US Latina/o experience. I, for one, am not a big fútbol fan (sorry, I prefer shopping), but this moment strikes me as typical of the inability to imagine Latinas/os where they are, which is comfortably between many and multiple worlds that have little to do with national allegiances in the 19th century way they tend to be deployed in the panicky Anglo press.
A lot of the comments have already addressed aspects of this tempest in a teapot smartly. I guess I just wanted to express some exasperation with the continual yak about loyalty, when such arguments reveal a) a profound and dangerous ahistorical myopia (My family, for one, did not arrive yesterday, have served in every US war since WW2, and are sometimes too firmly identified with the US, imho), and b) simplistic, Romper-Room style cultural politics of all-or-nothing (All McDonalds, all the time, or else you’re a traitor). Unfortunately, our current political moment supports this didactic system of thinking, all of which means US Latinas/os are in a lot of danger right now, for our refusal to bend to these rigid binaries of cultural “norms.” Of course, this tension between US racism and Mexican antipathy (the pocha/o) led originally to our Movimiento and Aztlán. We may have foundered around the actual logistics, but we can nurture our Aztlán in our heads, at the very least, as well as our cultural practices.
OK, maybe a little egg-heady here