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When Mexicans Could Play Ball: Basketball, Race, and Identity in San Antonio, 1928-1945

Name: When Mexicans Could Play Ball: Basketball, Race, and Identity in San Antonio, 1928-1945
Brand: University of Texas Press
SKU: 9781477302125
Price: 31.99 USD
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Contributors:

Ignacio M. GarcÃa

Publisher:

University of Texas Press

Binding:

Paperback

Book Category:

History, Social Science, Sports & Recreation

Book Subcategory:

United States, Ethnic Studies, Basketball

Book Topic:

State & Local, American

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The product is eligible for a complimentary return within 30 days from the date of purchase. Furthermore, individual items are shipped within 24 hours of receiving the order.

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Specifications +

Release Date:

2014-01-06

ISBN 13:

9781477302125

Weight:

0.96 lbs

Size:

9.00 x 6.00 x 0.66 inches

Pages:

292

Mint Condition +

product description

Description

Winner, Al Lowman Memorial Prize, Texas State Historical Association, 2014

In 1939, a team of short, scrappy kids from a vocational school established specifically for Mexican Americans became the high school basketball champions of San Antonio, Texas. Their win, and the ensuing riot it caused, took place against a backdrop of shifting and conflicted attitudes toward Mexican Americans and American nationalism in the WWII era. "Only when the Mexicans went from perennial runners-up to champs," Garc?a writes, "did the emotions boil over."

The first sports book to look at Mexican American basketball specifically, When Mexicans Could Play Ball is also a revealing study of racism and cultural identity formation in Texas. Using personal interviews, newspaper articles, and game statistics to create a compelling narrative, as well as drawing on his experience as a sports writer, Garc?a takes us into the world of San Antonio's Sidney Lanier High School basketball team, the Voks, which became a two-time state championship team under head coach William Carson "Nemo" Herrera. An alumnus of the school himself, Garc?a investigates the school administrators' project to Americanize the students, Herrera's skillful coaching, and the team's rise to victory despite discrimination and violence from other teams and the world outside of the school. Ultimately, Garc?a argues, through their participation and success in basketball at Lanier, the Voks players not only learned how to be American but also taught their white counterparts to question long-held assumptions about Mexican Americans.

About the Author

Ignacio M. García is the Lemuel Hardison Redd, Jr., Professor of Western and Latino History at Brigham Young University and the author of five books, including White But Not Equal, United We Win, and Chicanismo. His book Viva Kennedy: Mexican Americans in Search of Camelot won the Texas State Historical Association Coral Horton Tullis Memorial Prize for Best Book on Texas History.

When Mexicans Could Play Ball: Basketball, Race, and Identity in San Antonio, 1928-1945

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