Males, Soccer, and Ethnic Identity: Mexican and Mexican American High School Soccer Players in Chicago

• In Event: 566 - Section on Latino/a Sociology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 07. Identities

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine if soccer players use soccer as a way to maintain their Mexican identity or if they use it to help them assimilate into the American culture. The population of the study was male Mexican soccer players. We took the sample from a local high school. We interviewed ten students from the ages of sixteen to eighteen, each on the school soccer team. We found that most of them spoke almost all Spanish while playing soccer, which was not the case when they were not playing. And they felt more comfortable playing with their own race. Some even said that they spoke Spanish even when they played around non-Spanish speakers. All most all interviewees connected to why they began to play soccer to their father as well as the reason why they follow a certain team. From this evidence we believe that soccer players use soccer as a way to maintain their Mexican identity. A big part of the Mexican culture is language. The soccer players also see their father as a bridge that connects them to their Mexican identity, and they use that bridge by following the soccer team that their father follows. Overall they use soccer to maintain their Mexican Identity.

Authors

• Francisco Javier Nunez, University of Illinois-Chicago

• Mario Saldana