COLLIERVILLE IS HOME TO GUATEMALAN-AMERICAN FAMILY OF SOCCER FANS.
Collierville is the epicenter of soccer-loving Bran Nation
The seven-car Bran Caravan pulled out of Collierville Friday morning and headed for Nashville to root for the home teams. The U.S. men’s soccer team was playing the men’s team from Guatemala. The game was just an exhibition, a “friendly.”
For the 44 members of Bran Nation, four generations of Guatemalan-Americans, it might as well have been a World Cup final.
“The last time Guatemala played in the USA was in Birmingham in 2005,” said John Bran, one of Edgar and Ana Bran’s six children. “And yes, we were there, too.” It’s a big soccer weekend in the USA.
The U.S. women’s team is competing Sunday for its third World Cup. The men’s team is tuning up to begin competing next week for its sixth Gold Cup.
More Americans are playing soccer than any sport other than basketball.
Soccer is the fourth-most popular sport on U.S. TV, ahead of auto racing, tennis and golf.
The U.S. ranks eighth in average attendance for professional soccer games, ahead of Messi’s Argentina and Neymar’s Brazil.
People who try to explain these things link soccer’s growing popularity in America to America’s growing Hispanic population.
These are people who don’t know the difference between a Guatemalan, a Cuban, a Brazilian and a Spaniard. I blame Congress. In 1976, America’s bicentennial, Congress decided that we needed to start counting “Americans of Spanish origin or descent.”
Ay dios mio.
It was the only law in American history that required the collection and analysis of data for a specific ethnic group.
Placing all Spanish-speaking cultures together into one “ethnic” group makes about as much sense as lumping together all French-speaking cultures or all Arabic-speaking cultures.
According to the Census Bureau, 99 percent of people from Mexico identify themselves as Hispanic, but only 67 percent from Panama and 4 percent from Brazil.
More than half of all so-called Hispanics in the U.S. self-identify as white, and 40 percent with no race at all.
Nearly half of Latino adults describe themselves by their country of origin first.
“What are you? I get that question a lot,” said Kristina Bran, a University of Memphis graduate and one of 15 grandchildren in Bran Nation.
“They usually think we are Italian or Mexican. We just say that we are Guatemalan. Surprisingly, a lot of people ask where it is, what language do we speak.”
Let me save you some time.
Guatemala is about 1,400 miles due south of Collierville. It’s the first country south of Mexico.
Before it was “Spanish,” it was Mayan. Guatemalans speak Spanish, English and a variety of 23 Amerindian languages.
Collierville’s Bran Nation speaks Southern. “Meemaw says y’all,” Kristina said, referring to her grandmother, Ana Rosa Braham Bran.
Ana and her late husband, Edgar Antonio Bran, were born and raised in Guatemala. Edgar’s father had emigrated from Germany by way of Jamaica, Ana’s from the U.K.
Their first two children, Rose and Edgar Jr., were born in Guatemala. Their other four children, Ronny, Mark, Eric and John, were born in the U.S. after Edgar Sr. and Ana immigrated to Dallas in 1957.
“Our younger brothers were Americans before Edgar and I were,” said Rose McCahill, “but we beat our mother to it.”
The Brans moved to Memphis in the 1960s, and they fell in love with tennis.
Edgar Sr., who died in 2008 at age 73, was a linesman for many years at the U.S. Indoor Championships at The Racquet Club. He was good enough to call lines at the U.S. Open.
Two of Edgar’s sons, Mark and Ronny, are local tennis pros who coach at St. George’s Independent School.
Edgar Sr. became an American citizen soon after he moved to Texas.
“My dad really wanted to be able to vote,” Rose said. “For him that was such an honor, the American ideal.”
Rose was 19 when she became an American citizen. Edgar Jr. was 18. Ana waited until she was70.
“I was so scared,” said Ana, now 81.
“There were so many dates and details to remember. But I did it. I was so proud. The lady shook my hand and said, ‘Congratulations, you are an American.’”
A red-blooded, English-speaking, soccer-loving Guatemalan American from Collierville.