For weeks, Mexican supporters have been among the tournament’s most visible fans, filling stadiums across the United States – as well as their homeland – with bright green shirts, flags and chants.
Nowhere has that been more apparent than Southern California, home to one of the largest Mexican communities outside Mexico itself.
This scene of joy is a far cry from what this area has lived through recently.
Just a year ago, many Latino neighbourhoods were living through the height of ICE immigration raids. Businesses saw customers disappear. Families stayed indoors. Many people were reluctant to gather in public.
“What a difference a year makes,” Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano tells me.
We’re speaking in the middle of the same crowded bistro, where maracas, horns, matracas, and chants almost drown out our conversation.
Just outside is downtown Santa Ana – the historic Latino heart of Orange County. He remembers how different these same streets looked only a year earlier.
“They were occupying the same streets that a year earlier were completely, completely and utterly dead,” he says.
“This was June last year. That was really the height of this. These streets were empty unless you were protesting.”
Mr Arellano recalls National Guard vehicles stationed just blocks from his wife’s shop during immigration operations, while businesses across the neighbourhood suffered dramatic losses as raids continued.
“Fast forward a year later… this is catharsis – for Mexicans especially, but for Latinos in general.”
