Watch: NFL Sparks Controversy Again as Mariachi Band Plays Nat'l Anthem on Monday Night Football
Regardless of who you may have been cheering for during Monday Night Football’s clash between the Philadelphia Eagles and Chicago Bears, it was a big night.
For the Bears fans, journeyman backup quarterback Case Keenum helped them elicit elation. He showed that age [he’s 38] is just a number, helping Chicago stomp a mudhole into Philadelphia in a 27-7 romp.
Eagles fans painfully experienced an objective disaster of a football game as the team continued its season-long struggles.
But for any American football fans who may have otherwise tuned in early to watch a clash of two NFC titans, they may have experienced something else altogether: confusion.
And that’s because — as the internet has been chattering about — the NFL opted to start Monday Night Football with a slightly different take on the traditional, pregame performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
See if you can spot the anomaly yourself:
The Mariachi Herencia de México performed the national anthem in Chicago 🎶 pic.twitter.com/6Sv20SBqIr
— ESPN (@espn) September 29, 2026
Yes, two points for you if you noticed that the U.S. national anthem was played by a Mexican mariachi band.
The Mariachi Herencia de México helped serenade the Chicago audience with its instrumental rendition of the U.S. national anthem — and it was largely fine.
Yes, there were quite a few social media users and viewers who were miffed that a non-American band was playing in Chicago. Many users even connected the stunt to Chicago’s hyper-progressive mayor, Brandon Johnson.
During tonight’s NFL Monday Night Football game in Democrat-run Chicago, Illinois, a Mexican mariachi band performed the United States National Anthem.
Last time I checked, Mexicans have their own country and national anthem. We don’t need people dressed like Mexicans performing…
— Charles R Downs (@TheCharlesDowns) September 29, 2026
And look, people are obviously entitled to be upset by this.
But if I could dare to offer my two cents: In a vacuum, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this little demonstration in and of itself.
The actual issue, and one that I think many angry internet commentators are trying to articulate, is that this was a harmless message delivered during deeply harmful times.
The point, then, isn’t that a Mexican mariachi band playing the American national anthem is inherently offensive, anti-American, or even particularly noteworthy. Quite the opposite.
In a healthy, confident national culture, this is exactly the sort of thing that can be celebrated without anyone having to think twice about it.
The problem is that our culture is not operating in a vacuum.
For decades, Americans have been encouraged to think less in terms of a shared national culture and more in terms of an ever-expanding collection of competing identities (thank you, leftists!).
The old ideal of e pluribus unum — out of many, one — is increasingly getting inverted into something closer to “out of many, many more,” thanks to the far left.
And to be perfectly clear: Diversity itself isn’t the problem. The problem arises when diversity is treated as something that must replace the common cultural foundation that allowed all those different people to become Americans in the first place.
And that’s the irony. A confident and cohesive America doesn’t need to be afraid of cultural diversity because its underlying identity is strong enough to absorb it. You can have Mexican food, Korean churches, Irish pubs, Italian neighborhoods, Caribbean festivals, and mariachi bands playing the national anthem without any of those things threatening the existence of an American culture.
But when the shared culture itself is constantly questioned, diluted, or treated as something vaguely embarrassing, Americans understandably become more sensitive to signals that might once have seemed completely innocuous.
The answer is to rebuild the common ground that makes diversity work.
So no, I’m not going to pretend that a mariachi band playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a football game is some kind of national crisis. It just isn’t. In isolation, it’s harmless — and frankly, it was a pretty cool performance.
The larger cultural anxiety surrounding moments like this didn’t emerge from nowhere. If Americans want a country where different cultures can confidently coexist without every cultural gesture becoming a referendum on national identity, then the solution isn’t less diversity. It’s a stronger sense of the “one” in e pluribus unum.
Because when the common culture is strong, Americans can celebrate what makes them different without ever forgetting what makes them Americans. And we’re losing that, thanks to the left.
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