The crowd in this packed local Santa Ana Bistro is on its feet. Some wave Mexican flags. Others sing through the disappointment. Soon the room breaks into Cielito Lindo - Canta y no llores... sing, don't cry.

"This is sad," Louie Leyla tells me. The Mexican-American has lived in California since 1990. "But we're going to keep rooting for our people, no matter what."

England may have ended Mexico's World Cup, beating them 3-2 in the Azteca Stadium. But here, it does not feel like the end of the story.

For this football-loving community on the west coast of the United States, the tournament has been a triumph. Mexico exceeded expectations, united supporters across Southern California and, for weeks, gave fans something to celebrate.

"It's a loss," Alicia Rojas tells me. "But it's a win for our community in Santa Ana."

Nearby, Cynthia Rebolledo points to her young son, dressed head-to-toe in Mexico colours.

"He keeps asking if we're still going to the parade," she says with a smile. "He thought we won. He's been rooting for Mexico - and for his community."

This World Cup became about far more than football for this group of fans.

As music blares and fans dance with Mexican flags, Leigh Slater smiles.

"Football is like life. You lose, you win. But what we've seen throughout this World Cup is the unbreakable spirit of immigrants in this country."

'This is catharsis'

Mexico fans

For weeks, Mexican supporters have been among the tournament's most visible fans, filling stadiums across the United States - as well as their homeland - with bright green shirts, flags and chants.

Nowhere has that been more apparent than Southern California, home to one of the largest Mexican communities outside Mexico itself.

This scene of joy is a far cry from what this area has lived through recently.

Just a year ago, many Latino neighbourhoods were living through the height of ICE immigration raids. Businesses saw customers disappear. Families stayed indoors. Many people were reluctant to gather in public.

"What a difference a year makes," Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano tells me.

We're speaking in the middle of the same crowded bistro, where maracas, horns, matracas, and chants almost drown out our conversation.

Just outside is downtown Santa Ana - the historic Latino heart of Orange County. He remembers how different these same streets looked only a year earlier.

"They were occupying the same streets that a year earlier were completely, completely and utterly dead," he says.

"This was June last year. That was really the height of this. These streets were empty unless you were protesting."

Mr Arellano recalls National Guard vehicles stationed just blocks from his wife's shop during immigration operations, while businesses across the neighbourhood suffered dramatic losses as raids continued.

"Fast forward a year later... this is catharsis - for Mexicans especially, but for Latinos in general."

For many supporters, Mexico's role as one of the World Cup's three host nations, combined with the team's run to the knockout stages, created something larger than football: a rare opportunity to celebrate an identity that, for much of the previous year, had been associated with anxiety and uncertainty.

Supporters who only months earlier had worried about immigration enforcement were now singing the Mexican national anthem, waving Mexican flags and wearing El Tri shirts in public fan zones packed with families. For many, expressing their Mexican identity has never been at odds with being American.

Mr Arellano says Mexican football supporters were once frequently portrayed as "unpatriotic" for displaying Mexican flags, particularly during the anti-immigration politics of the 1990s.

"The expression of these fan bases has gotten bigger as America has gotten more diverse," he says.

Like millions of other supporters, he had hoped Mexico might pull off one more upset.

"The cynic in me says this is what always happens to Mexico. We're good, but we just can never truly compete against the elite of the world," he says.

"But you know what? We never give up. So I'm proud of what they did. We didn't give up until the very, very end. England was just a superior team."

As the United States marks its 250th anniversary amid renewed debates over immigration and national identity, diaspora communities have turned out not only for Mexico but also for countries including Scotland, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Morocco and Egypt, revealing an America where millions maintain deep cultural ties to more than one home.

For many Mexican-Americans, it became a celebration of two homes they proudly call their own.

At what Gustavo Arellano describes as "a really difficult moment" for Latino communities, this World Cup gave many something they had been missing.

"It was," he says, "an opportunity to express joy." (BBC)

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