How America’s immigrant communities made this World Cup their own

From a Harlem church backyard to towns across America, the World Cup became a refuge for immigrant communities this summer.

Jul 17, 2026

Collage of photos from the stories highlighted below. (Graphic by Alana Campbell for GroundTruth)

Editor’s Note: Charles Sennott is off this week. He asked our colleague Alana Campbell to share her experience of the World Cup, the biggest sporting event in the world, hosted this summer in the U.S. Campbell highlights how even in these times of racial tensions, war, and despair, communities have found a way to come together and show solidarity, resilience, and joy.

Since the ball started rolling on June 11, the World Cup has pulled immigrant communities across the country, and visitors from around the world, into a shared moment, bringing together families, friends, community members and total strangers.

I’ve had a front-row seat to these connections in one of the most diverse places on Earth: New York City.

I’m not much of a men’s soccer fan (although I played the sport in high school and followed the professional Women’s game religiously in college) but during the group stage, where there were between 2 and 6 games played each day, there was no avoiding it. It was everywhere — flyers advertising watch parties were on every block and walking through the city, I would occasionally hear thunderous applause at seemingly random times of day.

This World Cup is historic by design. It’s the first World Cup co-hosted by three countries — the U.S., Canada, and Mexico — and the first to expand the field from 32 teams to 48. That expansion brought the tournament from 40 matches to a record 104 matches across 16 host cities. Several nations made their World Cup debut, while several other countries returned to the World Cup after decades away. This is also the first time 10 African nations have qualified for the tournament, with 9 of them making it to the knockout rounds.

Tucked behind a church straddling West and Central Harlem, a spot I would pass by nearly every day, a previously overgrown backyard space was transformed into a “World Cup Village” by a local West African man, Bouba Manadja, whose T-shirt doubled as a flyer for the event. Flags from seemingly every country lined the fence, tables and chairs filled the yard, and a single TV anchored the space.

During the African teams’ matches, the place was lively and packed — full of food, foosball, and when the game wasn’t on, live music. African immigrants were the main patrons of the “village”, but peering in, I saw plenty of community members from every race and creed there.

It was much more subdued by the time I made it there to watch Tuesday’s France vs. Spain semifinal: the crowd was only about 25 people, no one was wearing a team jersey and despite many people there being French speakers, most of them were rooting for Spain, likely due to France’s colonial history in West Africa. Granted the game was at 3:00 p.m., it was 94 degrees with a Heat Advisory issued, and in the middle of the work day in a largely working-class area.

Scenes from the World Cup Village event, located behind St. Joseph of the Holy Family Church in Harlem, New York. July 14 and 15, 2026 (Photos by Alana Campbell for GroundTruth)

Manadja was friendly and constantly on the move, taking drink orders and making people feel welcome. When I left after the first half to attend another watch party in the Barrio, he thanked me for stopping by.

The next day, for the Argentina versus England game, I came by The World Cup Village closer to the end, right before the 9 minutes of stoppage time in the second half. Wildfire smoke had pushed the air quality to “unhealthy,” and you could smell the smoke in the air. On my walk over, it had started to drizzle. I was certain that the event would be clearing out, if there was anyone there at all. To my surprise, people had stuck around. When the storm picked up steam, the organizers didn’t shut it down, and the people didn’t leave. A few men grabbed the canopy and hauled it over the TV instead, and the rest of the crowd huddled under trees and the remaining canopy to watch the outcome, and they even stayed after to hang out.

Jimmy, a man in a Lionel Messi jersey who celebrated Argentina’s 2 to 1 win louder than anyone else there, put things bluntly: this kind of event — not-for-profit and community-oriented — wasn’t really “American,” he told me, but a product of immigrant communities’ more collective inclinations. I don’t disagree, especially in a cutthroat place like Manhattan. But I’d also say there’s something to the fact that America is still the country where that collectivism so often happens — where a West African immigrant can turn a Catholic Church’s backyard into, for one summer, the whole neighborhood’s backyard.

What I saw wasn’t unique to my corner of the city — or even to New York. Journalists across the country have been documenting the same phenomenon in their own communities: the World Cup as a rare space where joy, heritage, and political realities coexist. As Argentina and Spain clash on Sunday in the final of what is projected to be the most-watched sporting event in history, let’s take a look back at how communities came together around the beautiful game:

In the city of immigrants, the World Cup has given many New Yorkers a welcome respite | Arya Sundaram, Gothamist

This story moves through various immigrant enclaves in the city — Little Senegal in Harlem, Little Egypt in Astoria, Little Mexico in Sunset Park, and Little Colombia in Jackson Heights — capturing how the World Cup has given immigrant-rich neighborhoods a respite from immigration anxieties and rising xenophobia, along with a chance to publicly embrace their heritage.

It’s less about the game itself and more about what the tournament is doing socially and emotionally for people navigating a difficult political moment — from an Egyptian American at a hookah bar reflecting on feeling like a “second-class citizen,” to a Bronx resident with Senegalese roots noting that a win “gives attention to the situation” of immigrants abroad.

As Senegal Faces France in the World Cup, Fans Grapple with a Complicated Past | Anna Oakes, Documented

Zooming in on Little Senegal in Harlem, this next story focuses on a particularly loaded matchup: Senegal vs. France.

It directly ties soccer to colonial history — noting that France ruled swathes of what is now Senegal for centuries, forcing Senegalese people into labor and suppressing resistance until independence in 1960. That sordid history animated the fans’ anticipation of the game.

One restaurant manager was direct: a win would mean “the student has outgrown their teacher.” Unfortunately for him, France prevailed in that game 3-1.

The World Cup brings joy to these NJ communities in a time of strife | Hannan Adely, NorthJersey.com (part of the USA Today Network)

Across the river in Patterson, New Jersey, the World Cup has transformed neighborhoods into scenes of celebration: cheers spilling out of packed restaurants and cafés, flags waving from car windows, horns blaring as fans dance and sing in the streets.

This story focuses on the collective joy the World Cup has brought to Palestinian and Haitian communities amid political upheaval, war, and fear of deportation.

South Patterson is also known as “Little Palestine,” and though there is no Palestinian team in the tournament, many fans, still reeling from Israel’s ongoing actions in Gaza and the West Bank, have rallied behind other Middle Eastern and Arab-majority countries.

“It’s creating an escape from the genocide in Palestine, from the bombardment of Lebanon, from everything that’s going on politically,” said one Palestinian resident. “It’s a way to release and really focus on sports and bring the community together.”

Haitian communities on the other hand are grappling with the Trump Administration’s recent decision to end Temporary Protected Status for many Haitians, which could lead to deportations to a country marred by gang violence and political instability.

Fans of Haiti and Scotland celebrate underdog teams after decades of World Cup drought | Simón Rios and Eve Zuckoff, WBUR

This story out of Foxborough, Massachusetts focuses on the Haitian community living there as well as Scotland’s Tartan Army travelling in from across the pond for their June 13 clash.

Both teams were playing their first men’s World Cup match in decades — Scotland’s first appearance since 1998, and Haiti’s first since its lone 1974 appearance.

With both writing and audio, the reporters set the scene: Chartered buses from Providence with kilted fathers and sons and 10,000 cans of Narragansett Lager, a Mattapan Square rally where Haitian fans chanted “Grenadye Alaso!”, a backyard cookout where Haitian and Scottish fans traded rum and rice-and-beans before the match.

The Bosnian soccer team lost. Bosnians in St. Louis won anyway | Jeremy D. Goodwin, St. Louis Public Radio

This piece reframes a loss as a win: Bosnia and Herzegovina fell to the U.S. 2-0 in the Round of 32, but for St. Louis — home to one of the largest Bosnian communities outside Europe — the run itself was the real story.

One fan whose parents fled Serbia’s ethnic-cleansing campaign in the 1990s captured the moment’s importance: “People tried to erase us... this is celebrating the fact that we weren’t erased.”

The article also emphasizes the generational significance — parents who arrived as refugee children now watching their own U.S.-born kids fall in love with a country they had only known through family stories, with one mother saying her kids finally “get it now.”

Houston Congolese community rallies behind historic World Cup return | Laura Onyeneho, Defender Network

This story is also about a diaspora community stitching itself together.

The Democratic Republic of Congo qualified for its first World Cup in 52 years, and Houston became the team’s official base camp. One organizer said the excitement is uniting Congolese Houstonians across tribal and linguistic lines that are usually as present in Houston as they were back home.

“It’s really amazing what sports can do to break the divisions and bring people together,” he said.

One community member added that for a country whose news coverage “has just been bad for a long time,” this is the first positive global spotlight on Congo in decades.

World Cup Brings Celebrations, Mixed Emotions for Bay Area Immigrant Communities | Sydney Johnson, KQED

This piece moves across San Francisco, from an Algerian eatery near Fisherman’s Wharf packed for the Algeria-Argentina match, to a Haight-Ashbury bar where a Guatemala-born fan roots for Paraguay (citing their shared Mayan roots), to a gay Qatari physician who fled his home country and is now using the tournament’s spotlight to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights despite active death threats against him.

It’s a story about joy and protest sitting side by side, with one restaurant owner summing up the mood: “We really want to take advantage, as much as we can, of this beautiful moment.”

Welcome to ‘Tehrangeles’: Watching Iran at a World Cup with L.A.’s Iranian community | Anthony Gharib, ESPN

This story takes us to “Tehrangeles” — the Westwood neighborhood home to the largest Iranian population outside Iran — for Iran’s tournament opener.

The U.S. and Israel began a war against Iran in February, making Iran the first team ever to play a World Cup hosted by a country it’s at war with.

Inside the stadium, the anthem drew both cheers and boos. But at the café watch party described in the story, the mood was pure solidarity — fans there called the players “our cousins, our brothers,” insisting soccer and politics are separate: “They don’t have control over whatever political circumstances they’re under... we should all just be supporting them.”

‘Coreano Hermano’: Ahead of Mexico vs. South Korea, it’s all love between the fans | Juliana Kim, NPR

This fun story traces the friendship between Mexican and South Korean fans back to the 2018 World Cup, when South Korea’s shock upset of Germany helped Mexico advance, prompting Mexican fans to hoist the South Korean consul general onto their shoulders in gratitude.

That bond, nicknamed “Coreano Hermano” (”Korean, brother” in Spanish), has only grown since — fueled by growing diplomatic relations, increased Korean migration to Mexico, Mexico’s love of K-pop, and Los Angeles’s overlapping Korean and Mexican populations.

The story also follows two best friends, one Mexican American and one Korean American, who co-lead a Los Angeles Football Club supporters group, along with other Mexican-Korean duos tuning in to the game.

Team USA or Team Mexico? Or both? In San Diego, World Cup fandom doesn’t recognize borders | Jesus Garcia, Connor Larson, Niko Padilla and Alex Gabera, KPBS

Reported by a team of San Diego State University journalism students, this story captures border-city identity. For San Diegans with family, school, and work ties on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, “who are you rooting for” doesn’t have a straightforward answer.

Watch parties in Chula Vista drew thousands draped in Mexican green, while fans born in the U.S. to Mexican parents insist on rooting for both.

The piece argues that for many San Diego residents, it isn’t important which team wins the loyalty debate — loyalty to both countries can comfortably coexist there.

How Mexico’s World Cup run brought a small Oregon town to life | Roberto Jose Andrade Franco, ESPN

Northward, in Woodburn, Oregon, a small farmworking town that’s over 61% Latino, this in-depth story documents decades of both local hostility and hard-won belonging culminating in an effort to reclaim a sense of home and normalcy through soccer and the World Cup.

Anchored by the stories of the people who live there, the story documents ICE raids that emptied Woodburn’s downtown last fall, a beloved coffee shop that closed under the weight of tariffs and fear, and a food truck owner who says “Latinos are back” as the town cautiously re-emerges to watch Mexico play.

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