‘It’s like being close to home’: World Cup vibes immaculate in richly diverse New York

A lmost 200,000 Ecuadorians and Ecuadorian Americans live in New York City, and last week quite a lot of them were in a Brooklyn restaurant called El Encebollado de Victor to watch their football team take on Germany – a traditional World Cup powerhouse. It made for quite a sight: a sea of yellow shirts under the restaurant’s blue roof, which had been adorned with red, blue and yellow balloons for the occasion. Among the most patriotically dressed was Luis Aguilar, 45, who was born in the US to parents who had emigrated from Ecuador. Aguilar was wearing an Ecuador jersey, an Ecuador scarf, and a straw hat with the Ecuador colors and Ecuador written on the front. He had an Ecuador flag tied around his neck, and was with a dog called Jax who was also wearing a flag. As the match, held in New Jersey, began, it was clear there was a good turnout of Ecuadorians in the stadium too: yellow shirts were everywhere, and the country’s national anthem, ¡Salve, Oh Patria! was belted out in the stadium and in the restaurant. “It’s very fascinating. I have not seen this many Ecuadorians in one place [the stadium] probably ever,” Aguilar said. “To see all the yellow jerseys – it’s incredibly heart-warming and mesmerizing.” New York City is home to more than 3 million people who were born outside the US , from more than 150 countries. …