Determined Leo Santa Cruz is a proud son of Mexico

Two tourists stroll in from the blinding bling of the lobby and flick through the rack of particularly flammable-looking golf shirts before picking one out. They share and observation in French that is punctuated by “en Bangladesh” and guffaws follow.

The only cheap items on offer at the shop at Trump International Hotel Las Vegas are the laughs.

A patriotic faux-faded Stars and Stripes T-shirt is among the wares staring you straight in the face when you enter the Trump Store, likely pushed to the front since the man with his name on the tower assumed the highest office in this land of hypocrisies and promptly declared America First.

A quick inspection finds that the T-shirt, inevitably, was made in Pakistan.

Cheap laughs...for those of us who don’t have to live here in this new, deeply unsettling United States. For so many of those who do, this is no laughing matter.

Leo Santa Cruz lives here. But he didn’t always. He was born in Huetamo in Michoacan, the state known as the Soul of Mexico, whose official motto reads “We inherited freedom, we will bequeath social justice”.

When still a toddler his family followed a well-worn path from Mexico to Californian and his father Jose set about making a life for his wife and four young sons.

“He used to work as a painter,” Santa Cruz recalled in an interview with ESPN last year. “He used to leave really early in the morning and come home tired from work [with] paint in his hair.”

Jose’s dream was that his sons would fight.

“If I had to choose between a meal and watching boxing, I’d choose boxing,” Santa Cruz Sr has said.

His youngest son turned out to be more than just a fighter. Leo Santa Cruz is a former three-weight champion of the world and he’s back here in Vegas hunting retribution against Carl Frampton.

He made his grand entry into fight week with a public appearance at the MGM Grand Wednesday lunchtime. It was just a couple of hours after the owner of the golden tower up the Strip had signed an executive order to build a wall to block off Santa Cruz’s homeland.

Coupled with Trump’s orders to defund cities that give sanctuary to those making a new life here and, generally, everything that has come out of the 45th president’s mouth in recent days, weeks, months and ever, Santa Cruz is among those for whom this is all no laughing matter.

“You know, it does concern me,” said the 29-year-old. “He’s saying that he wants to kick out all the Mexicans, the Latin people and the people that are immigrants. I wouldn’t like for them to deport my family; my dad, my mom, and a lot of other family that I have also.

“What Trump says, yes there is...people who maybe come and do drugs but not all of them. Not all of the people are like that.

“If he was only picking the people who are doing drugs and coming here to do bad things, they could deport them. But not the people who are doing good, that come here to get a better life and to do a better thing for their family. That wouldn’t be fair.”

Santa Cruz is softly spoken to a point that you’re at risk of pulling cochlear muscles trying to pick out his words. But, on these questions facing his adopted homeland, he spoke louder and clearer than normal.

He sees his parents as representatives of an American Dream that seems to be edging closer to extinction with each 6 a.m. tweet from the White House.

“That’s what my parents did, my mom and dad. They came here from Mexico,” said Santa Cruz, a father of two young children himself. “They work hard to give us a better future. I stick to boxing and thanks to the hard work from my parents, I am where I am right now and can give my family a great future.”

There was no little poignancy that the when the topic of conversation moved on it was to another issue that divides this fractured country — healthcare. His father is most likely in a slim minority of immigrants to the U.S. in that his son’s successes and earnings in the ring gave him access to the best possible help in fighting a crippling cancer over the past year.

Now in remission, Santa Cruz Sr is back front and centre in his son’s preparations for this rematch of 2016’s fight of the year. It’s all part of his motivation to right the wrong of last July’s first instalment.

“They have been a big inspiration, I have seen them suffer but that makes me more motivated,” he said of his family’s travails. “If they see me fighting and working hard, that will give them hope to find a way to fight their illness. I can then give them a better life and they can be proud of me.”

Hope, pride, a better life. As his new homeland continues to ship brutal blows from the very top, the son of Michoacan fights on.