Fans of Mexican Soccer Team Take to Santa Ana Streets : World Cup: Many show patriotic fervor, pride in accomplishments of <i> futbol</i> squad that tied Italy. The city is home to a large Mexican immigrant population.
Wrapped in Mexican flags, sporting sombreros and chanting Viva Mexico ! hundreds of fans congregated in downtown Santa Ana Tuesday to cheer their team’s World Cup tie with Italy--a showing strong enough to advance Mexico to the soccer championship’s second round.
“You feel a lot of emotion when you wave the Mexican flag. You feel it in your throat when you yell Mexico! Mexico! “ blurted Pedro Bello, 26, whose 5-month-old daughter, Kimberly, sat beaming in a stroller with a tiny Mexican flag on her cheek, protected from the sun by a Mexican umbrella and flag.
“The same happiness that we each felt to see Mexico qualify drove us all into the streets,” he said.
As soon as the game ended, fans flocked spontaneously to the heart of Orange County’s Mexican community--Santa Ana’s 4th Street--painting their faces and buying World Cup T-shirts and Mexican flags that they quickly adorned with slogans such as “Mexico 100%. Viva La Raza. “
Police blocked off the street about noon when revelers turned it into a de facto parade route, but soon the action centered on 4th and Main streets.
Well into the evening, fans of all ages ran giddy circles around the intersection every time the light changed, chanted rounds back and forth hailing their team, and waved their flags and banners in front of honking cars in the mock gestures of bullfighters.
“Mexico has arrived at a moment of euphoria that we never experienced in Mexico. Italy has always beat us,” said Hector Brito Flores, 57, a native of Acapulco in the state of Guerrero, hometown of celebrated Mexican goalkeeper Jorge Campos.
Francisco Morales, 22, of Costa Mesa, hopped in a car with six friends after the game ended and drove straight to Santa Ana’s downtown, the center of the city’s fast-growing Latino majority.
“As Mexicans, we came here. This is the heart, the place where Mexicans unite,” said Morales, who launched into a poetic oration on Mexican pride that prompted applause from a small group that gathered around to listen.
The high-spirited celebration contrasted markedly with Tuesday’s Huntington Park melee, where police used pepper spray and rubber bullets on crowds after several thousand fans blocked traffic and threw rocks, bottles and telephone books at police and sheriff’s deputies who tried to keep them on the sidewalks. An East Los Angeles celebration was peaceful, but in Mexico City, a youth was beaten to death.
By late Tuesday night, Santa Ana police had arrested four people for drunkenness and had written about 100 traffic tickets. A crowd of about 300 still milled about, police said.
Throughout the evening, a steady stream of traffic honked in support, flying flags from windows and antennas. One van drew a screaming mob as it came to a stop and a passenger handed out glossy posters of the Mexican soccer team.
“This is the first time Mexico has advanced to the second round of the World Cup outside of Mexico since 1930,” said Octavio Mesa, 30, who cheered the three Mexican players who hail from his home state of Nayarit.
His two daughters cheered with him, their faces painted by their mother in the red, green and white stripes of the Mexican flag.
“I’m just proud,” said Lucia Mesa, 9, as her sister, 6-year-old Sally, giggled uncontrollably at the sight of two giddy fans staggering in the intersection under the weight of a third.
The shops on 4th Street normally do a steady business, but the festivities and blocked off streets kept consumers away.
