As someone who grew up watching WWF when the heels were often Russian or Middle Eastern cultural stereotypes, it’s fascinating (though not wholly suprising) that Mexican pro wrestling, which is known as “lucha libre,” has created anti-immigrant villains known as the Foreign Legion:

It was billed as an invasion. On a chartered tour bus carrying two dozen fighters, promoters of the wrestling style known as lucha libre rode through California last month to stage matches replete with the colorful masks, sexual slapstick and frenetic, acrobatic fighting style that have propelled their sport to rival soccer for popularity in Mexico. The headliners were long-haired, muscle-bound and handsome, promising crossover material for the American market.

But in the heart of the fight card, a deeper conflict played on the racial tensions and stereotypes of a downtrodden immigrant audience. Among the wrestlers, the vilest of the vile were the members of La Legíon Extranjera, the Foreign Legion, gringos who openly disparaged the spectators, their language and their country. The invasion, in this sense, referred to the chance for the Mexican heroes to drive out the Foreign Legion.

Just as American wrestling leagues enjoyed broad popularity in the waning days of the cold war with villainous Soviet characters like Nikolai Volkoff and Krusher Khrushchev, the lucha libre promoters have tailored their story line to the times. With immigration policy and the violent Mexican drug wars consuming the attention of policy makers, the cartoonish confrontation of north and south in the ring has found an eager audience in California, home to 37 percent of the nearly 12 million Mexicans estimated by the nonprofit Migration Policy Institute to be living in the United States.