Deportes
294 pages, 6 x 9
20 b-w images
Paperback
Release Date:17 Jul 2020
ISBN:9781978813663
Hardcover
Release Date:17 Jul 2020
ISBN:9781978813670
Deportes
The Making of a Sporting Mexican Diaspora
Rutgers University Press
Spanning the first half of the twentieth century, Deportes uncovers the hidden experiences of Mexican male and female athletes, teams and leagues and their supporters who fought for a more level playing field on both sides of the border. Despite a widespread belief that Mexicans shunned physical exercise, teamwork or “good sportsmanship,” they proved that they could compete in a wide variety of sports at amateur, semiprofessional, Olympic and professional levels. Some even made their mark in the sports world by becoming the “first” Mexican athlete to reach the big leagues and win Olympic medals or world boxing and tennis titles.
These sporting achievements were not theirs alone, an entire cadre of supporters—families, friends, coaches, managers, promoters, sportswriters, and fans—rallied around them and celebrated their athletic success. The Mexican nation and community, at home or abroad, elevated Mexican athletes to sports hero status with a deep sense of cultural and national pride. Alamillo argues that Mexican-origin males and females in the United States used sports to empower themselves and their community by developing and sustaining transnational networks with Mexico. Ultimately, these athletes and their supporters created a “sporting Mexican diaspora” that overcame economic barriers, challenged racial and gender assumptions, forged sporting networks across borders, developed new hybrid identities and raised awareness about civil rights within and beyond the sporting world.
These sporting achievements were not theirs alone, an entire cadre of supporters—families, friends, coaches, managers, promoters, sportswriters, and fans—rallied around them and celebrated their athletic success. The Mexican nation and community, at home or abroad, elevated Mexican athletes to sports hero status with a deep sense of cultural and national pride. Alamillo argues that Mexican-origin males and females in the United States used sports to empower themselves and their community by developing and sustaining transnational networks with Mexico. Ultimately, these athletes and their supporters created a “sporting Mexican diaspora” that overcame economic barriers, challenged racial and gender assumptions, forged sporting networks across borders, developed new hybrid identities and raised awareness about civil rights within and beyond the sporting world.
Long before today’s humanitarian activists clustered at the U.S.-Mexico border in support of artificially fractured communities and separated families, Mexican athletes—women and men—countered racist, sexist and nationalist sporting projects with their own transnational agency. With careful historical research, José M. Alamillo shows how, during the first half of the Twentieth Century, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans played, watched and wrote about baseball, boxing, basketball, running and other sports. An important book for our time, Deportes unveils a heretofore unwritten history, as it illuminates the possibilities that inhere in diasporic sport networks, to empower and unify, rather than to divide.
This book is a real beacon in the growing field of transnational studies and presents a cutting edge historical observation of Latino/a sport in the western hemisphere. José Alamillo’s commanding knowledge of diaspora anchors his scrutiny of the Mexican sporting culture, gender identities and transnational networks. His attractive narrative makes this study very readable, is well-suited for a scholarly and lay audience, and is a must for students in ethnic and gender studies. As well, viewed through a sporting lens, the author’s examination of migration and national identity increases the uniqueness of this compelling work.
Filled with unforgettable figures, Deportes provides the first transnational history of organized sports as recreation, occupation, and cultural identity among ethnic Mexicans in the Southwest.'
New Books Network - New Books in Latino Studies' interview with José Alamillo
https://newbooksnetwork.com/jose-alamillo-deportes-the-making-of-a-sporting-mexican-diaspora-rutgers-up-2020/
The field of sports studies is experiencing a renaissance, and José Alamillo is at the forefront of it. In Deportes, Alamillo illustrates his mastery of transnational history by telling the story of the role of sport in Mexican American community formation on both sides of the border during the first half of the 20th century. Our understanding of the Mexican American experience is vitally enriched by this pathbreaking scholar’s well-written and impeccably researched book.
Deportes offers a hemispheric approach, spanning the end of the 19th century to the years following World War II. The book documents the creation and evolution of a 'sporting Mexican diaspora' for Mexicans, Mexican immigrants to the United States, and Mexican Americans. Alamillo traces the 'imaginary and material interactions between athletes, team managers, and coaches across national borders as they organize, promote, and compete in sports-related activities.'
A foundational contribution to interdisciplinary and intersectional analyses of sport in transnational contexts, and a signal work on Mexican American identity creation during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Long before today’s humanitarian activists clustered at the U.S.-Mexico border in support of artificially fractured communities and separated families, Mexican athletes—women and men—countered racist, sexist and nationalist sporting projects with their own transnational agency. With careful historical research, José M. Alamillo shows how, during the first half of the Twentieth Century, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans played, watched and wrote about baseball, boxing, basketball, running and other sports. An important book for our time, Deportes unveils a heretofore unwritten history, as it illuminates the possibilities that inhere in diasporic sport networks, to empower and unify, rather than to divide.
This book is a real beacon in the growing field of transnational studies and presents a cutting edge historical observation of Latino/a sport in the western hemisphere. José Alamillo’s commanding knowledge of diaspora anchors his scrutiny of the Mexican sporting culture, gender identities and transnational networks. His attractive narrative makes this study very readable, is well-suited for a scholarly and lay audience, and is a must for students in ethnic and gender studies. As well, viewed through a sporting lens, the author’s examination of migration and national identity increases the uniqueness of this compelling work.
Filled with unforgettable figures, Deportes provides the first transnational history of organized sports as recreation, occupation, and cultural identity among ethnic Mexicans in the Southwest.'
New Books Network - New Books in Latino Studies' interview with José Alamillo
https://newbooksnetwork.com/jose-alamillo-deportes-the-making-of-a-sporting-mexican-diaspora-rutgers-up-2020/
The field of sports studies is experiencing a renaissance, and José Alamillo is at the forefront of it. In Deportes, Alamillo illustrates his mastery of transnational history by telling the story of the role of sport in Mexican American community formation on both sides of the border during the first half of the 20th century. Our understanding of the Mexican American experience is vitally enriched by this pathbreaking scholar’s well-written and impeccably researched book.
Deportes offers a hemispheric approach, spanning the end of the 19th century to the years following World War II. The book documents the creation and evolution of a 'sporting Mexican diaspora' for Mexicans, Mexican immigrants to the United States, and Mexican Americans. Alamillo traces the 'imaginary and material interactions between athletes, team managers, and coaches across national borders as they organize, promote, and compete in sports-related activities.'
A foundational contribution to interdisciplinary and intersectional analyses of sport in transnational contexts, and a signal work on Mexican American identity creation during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Alamillo’s broad set of topics and wide source base—including individuals’ stories that ordinarily take a backseat to sports superstars—makes this work an important read for those interested in not only sports and Mexican American history but also gender, U.S.-Mexican relations, immigration, and migration.
JOSE M. ALAMILLO is professor of Chicana/o Studies at California State University Channel Islands (Camarillo, CA) and author of Making Lemonade out of Lemons: Mexican American Labor and Leisure in a California Town and co-author of Latinos in U.S. Sport. He is a consultant on Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History exhibition on Latinos and Latinas in baseball.
Introduction
1. Deportes, Americanization, and Mexican Sporting Culture
2. El Boxeo, Immigration, and the “Great Brown Hope”
3. Playing Béisbol Across Borders
4. Forging Transnational Sporting Networks
5. Becoming Good Neighbors through Wartime Sports
6. Sporting a New Identity in Postwar America
Conclusion
Index
1. Deportes, Americanization, and Mexican Sporting Culture
2. El Boxeo, Immigration, and the “Great Brown Hope”
3. Playing Béisbol Across Borders
4. Forging Transnational Sporting Networks
5. Becoming Good Neighbors through Wartime Sports
6. Sporting a New Identity in Postwar America
Conclusion
Index
