Deportes: The Making of a Sporting Mexican Diaspora

Abstract

In mainstream US sporting discourse, the contributions of Mexicans and Mexican Americans are often ignored or underappreciated, whether as participants, fans, or journalists. In this work, José M. Alamillo examines the multidirectional development of the Mexican diasporic sporting culture that permeated both sides of the US-Mexico border in the first half of the twentieth century and continues to wield a significant impact on US sporting culture today.Deportes centers on the transnational development of Mexican sporting culture in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century. Alamillo focuses on the Mexican diaspora, also known in some intellectual circles as “Greater Mexico,” and how “Mexican origin” (3) athletes made use of their transnational networks to assert their dignity and place in a US society that often rejected and othered them as “brown.” These connections were bidirectional, however, as the Mexican government realized the potential of reaching out to México de afuera to develop the sports culture within Mexico. In the introduction, Alamillo clearly lays out his five foci, which include the role of US imperialism in creating a Mexican diaspora, the ways in which sports engendered solidarity and pathways to political power for ethnic Mexicans, the importance of understanding the role of the “brown” racial category within US sporting discourse, the impact of gender, and how hybridity helped create a Mexican diasporic sporting identity in the United States. Furthermore, Alamillo argues that the creation of Mexican American and Mexican identities in the United States were “simultaneous rather than sequential” (10).To substantiate his argument, Alamillo relies on meticulous research framed by a thorough investigation of the scholarly literature on Mexican sport, Mexican American sport and politics, US racial relations, and diaspora and identity. In addition, he has scoured several English- and Spanish-language periodicals from the United States and Mexico and employs archival evidence from the US National Archives and Records Administration, the Mexican Archivo General de la Nación, as well as smaller archives and private collections. This myriad of evidence results in a nuanced analysis that incorporates several perspectives on the creation of a Mexican sporting diaspora.Alamillo documents this process through an introduction, six chapters, and a conclusion. The first chapter centers on the development of “modern” sporting culture in Mexico and the use of sport to “Americanize” “problematic” Mexican immigrants up to the 1920s, with a particular focus on the YMCA and the Spanish-language press in both the United States and Mexico. The second chapter focuses on boxing in the 1920s and 1930s, particularly the exploits of Bert Colima, Baby Arizmendi, and Rodolfo Casanova. The immigration issues the latter two encountered provide a completely new understanding of how race impacted ethnic Mexican sporting celebrity in the 1930s. Chapter 3 focuses on the development of a hybrid baseball culture among ethnic Mexicans in the 1920s and 1930s that included attempts to create cross-border solidarity and highlights women's agency through creating their own baseball teams. Chapters 4 and 5 both examine transnational outreach by governmental agencies, with the former analyzing attempts by the Mexican government to build a relationship with the Mexican Athletic Association of Southern California in the 1930s and early 1940s and the latter centering on the US Office of Inter-American Affairs’ efforts to promote sports like American football in Mexico in the 1940s. Chapter 6 examines Mexican American efforts to battle juvenile delinquency, build diasporic ties, and frame a civil rights agenda through sport during and after World War II.The strengths of this book are its thorough research, clear organization, accessible writing style, and balanced approach to the topic at hand. As a result, it offers a picture of Mexican diasporic sporting culture that incorporates the perspectives of sporting bureaucrats, political leaders, celebrity athletes, and lesser-known athletes, including women and youth. The analysis is further infused with a personal touch, as each chapter begins with a biography of a Mexican-origin sports figure or a personal anecdote, such as the author's experiences betting on boxing matches with his family or living through Fernandomania (the hoopla surrounding the exploits of Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela) in the early 1980s. These stories provide some background as to how the author can wade through Mexican American and Mexican historical processes so effortlessly. In addition, he draws special attention to women's participation, particularly in baseball and boxing, portraying them as active agents even if they faced significant racial and gender discrimination.Deportes is the product of an experienced and impassioned historian in tune with current trends in sport historiography. It is essential reading for anyone interested in sport, Mexican, Chicanx/Latinx, or US history and would work well if assigned in undergraduate and graduate courses on those subjects.