Soccer match tests loyalty of many Las Vegas fans

Monday, June 17, 2002 | 11:08 a.m.

About 15 minutes before the U.S.-Mexico World Cup match began Sunday night, Jose Alvarez, holding a Mexican flag in one hand and a Corona beer in the other, was clear about whom he wanted to win.

Although Alvarez has spent 18 of his 25 years north of the border -- the last three in Las Vegas -- he didn't miss a beat when asked. "I'm 100 percent Mexican," he crowed.

On the other side of the cavernous Mardi Gras ballroom at The Orleans, crammed with more than 1,000 of the estimated 6,500 soccer fans gathered at the resort, George Aguilar, who has lived 26 of his 30 years in the United States, explained why he held aloft the Stars and Stripes.

"As my grandmother used to say, it's not where you were born, but where your heart is."

Within a half-hour, Aguilar was celebrating the first of two goals that gave the U.S. a 2-0 victory and its best showing since the World Cup -- the world's largest sporting event -- began in 1930. The U.S. now advances to the quarterfinals for the first time, facing Germany on Friday.

But what played out on hundreds of large and small screens across the Las Vegas Valley was more than just a sporting event. The overnight match presented a curious dilemma for immigrant Southern Nevadans who came here in the past decade to fill construction and casino jobs created by the rapid growth of the '90s.

With 22 percent of Clark County's population now claiming some Latin-American roots -- at least 70 percent of whom have ties to Mexico -- the match became a time for soul-searching, raising the question always beneath the surface for immigrants everywhere: Who am I?

In an editorial last week on the match, Las Vegas' oldest Spanish-language newspaper, El Mundo, cajoled its readers, "Mexico is our mother, but the United States is our father."

Alex Castro, born in Scottsdale, Ariz., and a seven-year resident of Las Vegas, showed his dual loyalty as he watched the game at The Orleans. He painted one cheek with the Mexican colors, and the other, red, white and blue.

"I'm more American -- but in the sense of the Americas -- than anybody," he explained. "My father is Navajo Indian, and my mother, Mexican. So I don't care who wins, as long as the cup stays in the Americas."

When Mexico had succumbed to a powerful, second goal nearly halfway through the second half, Castro found his philosophy under challenge, as a burly guy at a neighboring table got a little testy about whose side he was really on.

"What's his problem? Can't I be with both?" he asked, while friends and relatives from both tables separated the two. Alvaro Aguirre, who, at 71, said he has been playing soccer practically since the first World Cup -- and who up until six months ago trained referees in Las Vegas' 30-club Major League -- agreed with Castro.

Consulted before the game, Aguirre said that all Hispanics should be glad that both teams had avanced in the World Cup, regardless of the final result. "We are all Americans, in the broadest sense of the word," he said.

Most of the thousands at The Orleans filed out before the game ended. One man stood punching a wall in the hall outside.

Antonio Cornejo, 22 and his father, Adolfo Cornejo, 52, left as the game ended, shortly after 1:30 a.m. Only six months over the border, the elder Cornejo said he was disappointed, but ready to back the U.S. team starting Friday.

"We're in their country, and this country has treated us well, so we should know how to lose and support them from now on," he said.

Then they both excused themselves, as they had to be at work painting houses in Green Valley at 6 a.m.