http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3094261

Article Last Updated: 10/07/2005 01:01 AM

Scene would have shocked border trio

By Jim Spencer
Denver Post Staff Columnist
DenverPost.com

CHI-VAS! A-ZUL!

CHI-VAS! A-ZUL!

As three wing nuts from the Colorado legislature suggested that the state spend tax dollars to pay civilian vigilantes patrolling the Mexican border and deny state-supported welfare and health care to illegal immigrants, I floated in a sea of local Mexican-Americans.

Nearly 29,000 Coloradans showed up at Invesco Field on Wednesday night for a soccer match between Chivas and Cruz Azul, two Mexican professional teams. All but a few thousand fans were Latino.

They paid for their tickets and bought overpriced concessions.

Thousands of children and parents wore Mexican team jerseys or draped themselves in the flags of their favorite team. They competed to cheer the loudest, waiting politely for their rivals to respond: CHI-VAS! A-ZUL!

I suspect the majority of those cheering pay state taxes. I wonder how many want those taxes funding a private, primarily white army that tracks down illegal brown immigrants. I wonder how many want to leave undocumented workers sick or homeless and hungry.

That's what Colorado Reps. David Schultheis, Bill Crane and Jim Welker talk about when they say state taxpayers should help fund the Minuteman Project and end benefits to illegal immigrants.

Nobody was thinking about that at the soccer match. Rather, they concentrated on the "wave" flowing through the stands. Smiling, laughing fans of both teams stood together and flung their hands into the air. Behind me, a middle-aged Latino man hugged his grandchild inside his coat as the temperature dipped to near-freezing.

It was as fun-loving and family-oriented a crowd of Coloradans as you'd see at a professional sports event.

It was also an ironic antidote to the distrust and fear of Mexicans empowered by anti-illegal-immigrant types such as Schultheis, Crane, Welker and Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo.

The huge assembly of Mexican-Americans at Invesco took place hours before anti-illegal-immigrant forces - including the founder of Colorado's Minutemen - delivered to Gov. Bill Owens a letter calling for "An Emergency Executive Order designating sports arenas ... as 'overflow' holding areas for illegal aliens awaiting hearings and deportations (ending dangerous catch-and-release policies)."

The anti-illegal-immigrant forces say they oppose illegal entry to the U.S., not people of color. Yet they hover on the Mexican border. They worry almost full time about illegal Mexicans.

The happy gathering of brown people at Denver's largest sports arena likely would have raised their blood pressure.

The anti-illegal-immigrant troops find it unpatriotic for Americans to read or speak Spanish instead of English. Witness their recent charge that the Denver Public Library buys too many Spanish-language books. Witness Thursday's letter to the governor, demanding that he punish "State agencies and employees who conduct State business in languages other than Colorado's Constitutionally designated 'Official English."'

English was a distant second language at Invesco on Wednesday.

And, horror of horrors, in the first game of a double-header, the crowd cheered louder for the Chivas USA side in a Major League Soccer match than for the home team Colorado Rapids.

This must be the "balkanization" of America that the anti-illegal-immigrant crowd fears. Sure, most of these fans were back on the job Thursday, working stiffs paying taxes. Yeah, a recent study showed immigrants account for only 8 percent of government health spending.

But for gosh sake, these people stayed out until midnight, pulling for a team with a Mexican namesake against an American soccer club. Then, they cheered wildly in Spanish for a pair of Mexican teams.

I'm just glad Schultheis, Crane, Welker and Tancredo were not looking for illegal aliens at Invesco on Wednesday night when Chivas and Cruz Azul took the field. So many of their fellow Coloradans rose for the Mexican national anthem, they might have died of culture shock.

Jim Spencer's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.