Group of Chiefs fans from KC still making trip to Mexico City to connect with roots

Most Sundays, Cris Medina meets with about 15 of his closest friends at La Fonda El Taquito on Southwest Boulevard to watch the Chiefs.

This week, that group of friends will take their watch party to a bar in Mexico City, thousands of miles away from La Fonda, to watch the Chiefs take on the Rams in a Monday Night Football showdown.

This bar, though, is the group’s backup plan. They were supposed to be watching their Chiefs live at Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium. The NFL’s decision to relocate the game because of poor field conditions threw a wrench in those plans.

But even with the game moved to Los Angeles, over half of the group still decided to travel to Mexico City.

That’s because for many of them, the trip was never just about a football game — it was about the opportunity to connect with their Mexican heritage. And for some of them, it’s the first time they’ll be able to visit the country of their ancestors.

“I think we’re going to have a greater appreciation of our roots, where our families came from,” said Ramona Arroyo, a retired Kansas City police sergeant. “As an older adult, we get a better appreciation. It’s kind of new discoveries, too.”

The group left Thursday morning and is scheduled to return to Kansas City on Tuesday afternoon. While in Mexico City, they’ll take a bus to visit cultural landmarks like the Frida Kahlo Museum and the Teotihuacan Pyramids.

Though Arroyo was born in Kansas City, her family is rooted in Guanajuato, about 220 miles southeast of Mexico City. A huge Chiefs fan, Arroyo was incredibly disappointed when the NFL decided to move the game, but it was worth still making her first trip to the country since 2005 to discover more about her family.

“I’m just happy to go back there,” she said. “I would just like to spend more time in Mexico, and actually do some more genealogy with regards to my mother and my father. It would be interesting to see if I have relatives there. But I’m excited. I’m just going to make the best of it.”

For Paul Rojas, the trip to Mexico City is his first outside of the United States since he was deployed in the Korean War.

During the war, Rojas, now 84, prayed to to Our Lady of Guadalupe for a safe return, and he promised to visit her shrine in Mexico City. Now, nearly seven decades later, he’ll be able to fulfill that promise when he and the rest of the group visits the Basilica of Guadalupe on Friday.

“When I get on the plane, even if I don’t do anything else, I’ll keep my pledge to the shrine of the Lady of Guadalupe,” Rojas said Wednesday.

Rojas is Mexican-American, and for him, the game was an opportunity to spread goodwill between the two countries.

“It would’ve been a most beautiful opportunity to show good relations from one good country to another good country as neighbors and ambassadors,” he said. “Even though the game won’t happen, it won’t take away respect we have for Mexico and our other friends.”

Unlike some of the group, Rojas won’t be watching the game in Mexico City. Because he purchased his tickets through an NFL package, Rojas got assistance in obtaining a ticket to the game in Los Angeles. He’ll be flying from Mexico City to LA on Sunday before returning to Kansas City on Tuesday.

Not everyone was as lucky as Rojas. Medina, who is the CEO of Kansas City’s Guadalupe Center and helped organize most of the trip, isn’t going to Mexico because he misplaced his passport. And Cynthia Sauter and her husband Jerry were supposed to go to celebrate Jerry’s 66th birthday, but they aren’t making the trip either.

But even if the trip isn’t going exactly as planned, the group is still thankful for the opportunity to connect with their heritage, something that wouldn’t have been possible if the Chiefs game wasn’t on the schedule.

“When I found out I’m going out all the way over there to watch the Chiefs on TV, I was like ‘Wow, wow,’” Arroyo said. “At the same time, I’m truly blessed with the opportunity to go to Mexico. It’s like somebody told me, if you’re handed lemons, make lemonade. So I’m just going to go with a positive attitude, make the best of it.”

Brooke Pryor

Brooke Pryor covers the Kansas City Chiefs and NFL for The Star.