Abstract
An ethnic group's members select and translate into social boundaries cultural behaviors that support the group's values. By using sport contact situations between Navajo Indians and Euro-Americans in a 1903 Fourth of July festival and present basketball participation, it is shown that the content and form signaling ethnic boundaries changed over time from traditional Indian sports to Euro-American sport participation. An analysis of these inter- ethnic sports encounters showed that the ethnic group members' perception, selection, and expression of changing behavioral content continually reinforced ethnic diversity. It is suggested that, because inter-ethnic sports' participation reaffirms one's own cultural values, these encounters define ethnic differences, not similarities.
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