Latinos and Latinas in American Sport: Stories Beyond Peloteros

Latinos and Latinas in American Sport: Stories Beyond Peloteros expands upon the significance of sport in U.S. Latino communities by looking at sports as diverse as drag racing and community softball, the rise of Latinas in high school basketball, and the role of Latinos in protesting social injustice through sport.

Although the Latino/a population of the United States has significantly expanded since the 1960s, an analysis of this population’s place in the history of American sport has, until recently, been sorely lacking. This second anthology by Jorge Iber adds scope and depth to our understanding of the relationship between sport/recreation and identity and involvement among Spanish-speaking people throughout what is now the United States. The chapters of this volume focus on eras and topics as varied as the Latino experience itself, including the treatment of Mexican athletes arriving in the U.S. for the 1932 Olympics; the importance of youth baseball in an early 1960s southern Texas community; and how the growing Latino presence in the NFL and other professional sports has destabilized the historically black/white dichotomy in U.S. athletics.

As the nation’s demographics continue to change, more and more Latinos/as are leaving their marks on fields of competition from local to professional, on college and franchise business offices, and on the American sporting event and sporting goods industries. In considering such instances in the particular, this volume further illuminates the roles that sport and recreation play in the day-to-day existence of Spanish speakers in the United States.