Migration, Emergent Ethnicity,
and the "Third Space": The Shifting Politics of Nationalism in
Greater Mexico

David G. Gutiérrez

In October 1994, in an incident that is now widely considered to have marked a turning point in recent immigration history, an estimated seventy thousand people took to the streets of Los Angeles to protest the impending passage of California's Proposition 187. The statewide initiative, much of which was subsequently invalidated in a federal district court, was a frankly punitive measure designed to discourage unauthorized migration to California by denying undocumented residents and their children access to virtually all public services, including tax-subsidized health care, welfare programs, and public education. The initiative generated fierce debate in the state in the months before the vote. Indeed, the controversy swirling around the initiative was such that the anti-187 march was among the largest organized political protests to occur in Los Angeles since the height of the Vietnam War.1	1
The march became a political flash point for many reasons, not least of which was a long-simmering resentment felt by many Californians based on their sense that "illegal aliens" were demanding rights in the United States to which they were not entitled. This impression undoubtedly was reinforced by the large numbers of Latinos who participated in the march. It is impossible to tell exactly who the protesters were, but photographs and news footage of the event indicate that most of the crowd appeared to be Latinos, and since the Mexican proportion of the Latino population of Los Angeles is conservatively estimated to be something between 70 and 80 percent, most of the marchers were probably either resident Mexican nationals or sympathetic Mexican Americans.2 What really seemed to raise the ire of observers most, however, was the political symbolism of the protest. According to many of the letters to editors that appeared in numerous newspapers in the weeks following the march, some southern Californians were disturbed because marchers chanted political slogans in Spanish and carried Spanish-language protest signs. Others seemed offended when reports surfaced that three horn players at the march had burst into an impromptu mariachi-style version of "The Star-Spangled Banner." But the symbolic image that clearly created the greatest uproar was the many flags waving among the marchers. As was apparent from the post-election fallout reported in local papers, voters were most upset by the fact that, although a few American flags could be seen waving in the assembled throng, most of the protesters proudly and defiantly waved the red, white, and green flag of the Republic of Mexico.	2
Three years later, in February 1998, many southern Californians had their hackles raised once again when local newspapers published accounts of an important soccer match at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum between the national teams of the United States and the Republic of Mexico. Playing before a huge crowd of 91,255 (and an overflow group of 6,941 who watched the event on closed-circuit television next door at the Los Angeles Sports Arena), the Mexican squad eked out a 1-0 victory after the United States team's famous bearded and shaggy-haired defender, Alexi Lalas, lost control of the ball in front of the American goal and watched in dismay as Mexico's Luis Hernández headed in the match's only score. Reporters covering the contest duly noted that the disappointing United States team had lost the regional Gold Cup to Mexico, and thus yet another important preparatory match for the World Cup scheduled later in the year. Again, however, most of the newspaper stories focused not so much on the match itself, but on the symbolic drama that unfolded at the event. As reported in the Los Angeles Times, while the highly partisan crowd, which was largely Latino, "was delighted" by the outcome, "the American players quickly found out . . . that playing in Los Angeles is not a home game for the United States national team."	3
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