'We see we're not alone.' Seattle's Mexican community celebrates World Cup, amid a turbulent time 39%
By Gustavo Sagrero Álvarez0%
6/12/2026, 5:04:03 PM
Keywords: World Cup, Immigration, Seattle, Mexico, Soccer, Community, Celebration, Latino, Hispanic, Ice, Deportation
BS Summary: This article contains 29 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Optimism Bias, and Availability Heuristic, with Hasty Generalization as the most egregious example at 24.9% saturation with 181 hits. Analysis detected 1,623 faulty-reasoning hits from 726 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 44.6% and a BS Rank of 39% (13,383 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 61.10% of the article peer group.
Thousands of miles from the inaugural game of the World Cup in Mexico City, hundreds if not thousands of fans in bars, neighborhoods, and cities across Puget Sound are singing Mexico' s national anthem.
Among them is Rene Neri.
He’s standing in a crowd of friends and family in front of a giant TV screen in the parking lot of a bar in Seattle's Pioneer Square, watching Mexico play South Africa.
Neri and more than 500 Mexico fans, many Mexican-Americans, are just a block away from where Seattle will host its own World Cup games in the coming weeks.
Their attire is sport-casual variations of denim, black, red, white and green, sunglasses, and hoop earrings.
There’s at least one Mexico-themed Mariners baseball cap in the crowd.
Everyone is holding a combination of noisemakers, flags, phones, babies, and pints of beer.
“The Mexican community here in Seattle has grown so much in the last few years.
It’s beautiful to come celebrate with everyone something as important as soccer is for us — and be here to celebrate, and be in community,” Neri said.
RELATED: Is Seattle sweeping more homeless camps for the World Cup?
After Mexico scored its first goal against South Africa, the crowd with babies and pints in hand leapt into the air in unison.
A spray of beer came down with them as they returned to the floor, arms still raised in celebration.
This watch party was organized by the Seattle Battalion of Pancho Villa’s Army — a major fan club of Mexico’s soccer team with many chapters in major cities.
Mexico has never won the World Cup, but playing on home turf is giving many die-hard fans here reason to hope.
Sisters Karime and Leslie Molina were at the bar with family visiting from Mexico.
They’ve all grown up playing the game as kids in Mexico.
“We’ll never win a World Cup, but we’ll always be there,” Karime said amid laughs with her sister.
The Molina sisters now live in Renton.
They moved to the Seattle area six years ago with the help of their dad, who’s been living in the U.S. for the past 30 years.
Leslie says for them this World Cup comes at a hard time for many Mexican-Americans.
“It's really exciting, but a little difficult at the same time,” she said.
“The whole issue of immigration and things like that—people we know—but, uh, we're happy because, well, seeing more people makes us realize we're not the only ones, and we know we can build a bigger Mexican community.”
RELATED: Washington state is spending $120 million on the World Cup.
Will it be worth it?
Nationwide, Mexicans, and Latinos overall, are part of a projected demographic shift that could result in 1 in 4 Americans in the future being Hispanic.
It’s still unclear how President Trump’s mass deportations will affect this projected future.
It’s part of a tension that lingers here for Pancho Villa’s Army Battalion Captain Jose Alvarado.
“ I just wanna get the community together.
This, that's what this is all about.
Get the community together, bring families.
Like, don't be scared to come out, you know?
And support.
'Cause the things we've been through… everything with Trump,” he said.
The majority of people deported from Washington state are Mexicans, leaving a tattered community fabric.
Many of those arrests have been happening in the suburbs of Seattle, where advocates and attorneys have reported an increase of activity in recent weeks leading up to the World Cup being hosted in Seattle.
Families have been splintered as a result of immigration enforcement.
RELATED: Seattle labor groups prepare for increased ICE presence at the World Cup
“ ICE has been out in the streets and everything, just gathering if you look Mexican or Hispanic, whatever, they just grab you,” Alvarado said.
“But we can't be scared.
We're, we're all united right here right now, so we gotta stick together,” Alvarado said.
Mexico won their opening match 2-0, which means fans will be back in Pioneer Square again next week, and at bars, mariscos restaurants, and neighborhood lunch spots around the Puget Sound and beyond hoping to watch this crew of Mexican athletes make it to the World Cup finals, or at least to the knockout round.
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