When Mexicans could play ball : basketball, race, and identity in San Antonio, 1928-1945 / by Ignacio M. García.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

García, Ignacio M., author.

Contributor:

University of Texas Press.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Basketball--Texas--San Antonio.

Basketball.

Basketball--Social aspects--Texas--San Antonio.

Sports--Texas--San Antonio--History.

Sports.

Mexican Americans--Texas--San Antonio.

Mexican Americans.

Mexican Americans--Social life and customs.

History.

Basketball--Social aspects.

San Antonio (Tex.)--Social conditions.

San Antonio (Tex.).

Hispanic American basketball players--Texas--San Antonio.

Hispanic American basketball players.

Texas--San Antonio.

Physical Description:

xii, 270 pages, 8 pages of unnumbered plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Austin : University of Texas Press, 2013.

Summary:

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," García 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, Garcia 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, Garcia 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, Garcia 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. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction: The punch heard 'round the barrio

A coach comes to Sidney Lanier

Mexicans can play, but not everyone is pleased

Lanier makes its run at State and finds its first stars

Sidney Lanier: an American-Mexican landscape

War comes to the West Side, and Lanierites respond

Adjusting to war and getting back to State

The Voks finally make it to the top

On the summit looking up

The Rodríguez boys must be stopped

An era comes to an end, but a school remains.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 259-265) and index.

ISBN:

9780292753778

0292753772

OCLC:

847528996