Mexico might not have the U.S. to kick around anymore

The United States hasn't prevailed in Mexico City since Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee fought alongside each other to vanquish Santa Ana, but the American soccer team will try again today as it takes on the Mexican national team in a key World Cup qualifying match in Azteca Stadium. Despite how fiercely competitive the U.S.-Mexico soccer rivalry has become in the last two decades, the Americans have never won in Mexico City.

For many Angelenos, today's game, though played south of the border, is a source of anxiety and soul-searching about identity amid conflicting loyalties. And for many other Angelenos who don't share in that conflicted anxiety -- and may not even care about the sport itself -- the sight of Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles waving the Mexican flag or cheering on El Tricolor (as Mexico's national team is affectionately called) is Exhibit A of how these new Americans aren't quite assimilating in the same way that previous waves of immigrants did.

Sometimes I wonder if Washington's efforts to enact comprehensive immigration reform a few years back might have succeeded if God hadn't invented soccer. The heated soccer rivalry between neighbors is the gift that keeps on giving for anti-immigration crusaders. What's particularly troubling to this crowd is that because of the rising number of Latinos in the U.S. -- and the demographics of the soccer fan base -- the Mexican team enjoys home-field advantage when playing against the U.S. in either country (the Americans forced Mexico to play the last World Cup qualifier in Columbus, Ohio, in February in an apparent effort to minimize the number of Mexican fans in the stands).

Early on in his 2004 book, "Who Are We?" Samuel Huntington contrasted the scene at a 1998 U.S.-Mexico match in Los Angeles -- 91,255 fans "immersed in a sea of red, white and green" flags cheering on Mexico -- with past immigrants "who wept with joy when, after overcoming hardship and risk, they saw the Statue of Liberty [and] enthusiastically identified themselves with their new country that offered them liberty, work and hope... ." You get the idea.

Nonsense, I say. If an Irish team had come to play the United States in Boston or New York a century ago, I'm guessing the stands would have been awash in green.