Women Don't Cry at Football. I Cried at Football.

Originally shared in Tuesday Notes on June 16, 2026.

My Dad called me into the room to watch. I sat down, and within minutes I was crying.

The spectacle was beautiful, but it wasn't just that. It was the Latino pride on one of the biggest stages in the world, unapologetic and enormous. In a world that feels increasingly divided by nationalities, religions, and borders, there is something quietly radical about watching people come together to celebrate humanity. And in a moment when the US immigration conversation has made so many people feel like they should be smaller, seeing that joy on people's faces in the stadium, the vibe, the colour of it, it hit somewhere deep.

I'm not Mexican by nationality. But Mexico still feels like home.

The language, the music, the tacos (obviously!), the pride in heritage, the calor humano. Those are things I carry with me and miss every day living in Europe. Watching the opening ceremony, I wasn't just moved by what I was seeing. I was moved by what I was missing.

There's a concept in psychology called collective self-esteem. It's the part of your identity tied not to who you are individually, but to the groups you belong to. Your culture, your language, your heritage. When those groups are celebrated on a big stage, it registers as something personal. Because it is personal. That identity lives in you whether or not it shows up on your documents.

I have passports of Panama and Venezuela. I've never been to Venezuela and I left Panama when I was a few months old. And yet there is still a sense of roots there, a thread of belonging that doesn't require me to have lived it to feel it.

Growing up across different countries and cultures, self-identity was something I genuinely struggled with for many years. I always identified most as Latina, but I can't deny my Swiss heritage either. For a long time I didn't know what to do with that.

Belonging everywhere and nowhere at the same time is a particular kind of loneliness.

What the opening ceremony reminded me is that belonging isn't always official. Sometimes it's a rhythm you recognise, a language that lives in your body before it reaches your brain, a colour that feels like home.

I don't have a neat conclusion for this one. I was emotional, and then I was happy and proud. Happy for Mexico, happy for the Latino community getting this moment. Sometimes that's enough.

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Tuesday Brain Snack

Psychologist Jennifer Crocker developed the theory of collective self-esteem in the early 1990s, finding that our sense of self is deeply tied to the social groups we belong to. When those groups are publicly celebrated, our own sense of worth rises with them. When they're made invisible or diminished, we feel that too. It's one of the reasons representation isn't just a nice idea. It's a psychological need.

Question: has something ever moved you that you didn't expect? A song, a ceremony, a moment that caught you off guard?

Until next Tuesday,

much love, Claudia ✨