"Long before today’s humanitarian activists clustered at the U.S.-Mexico border in support of artificially fractured communities and separated families, Mexican athletes—women and men—countered racist, sexist and nationalist sporting projects with their own transnational agency. With careful historical research, José M. Alamillo shows how, during the first half of the Twentieth Century, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans played, watched and wrote about baseball, boxing, basketball, running and other sports. An important book for our time, Deportes unveils a heretofore unwritten history, as it illuminates the possibilities that inhere in diasporic sport networks, to empower and unify, rather than to divide."
~Michael A. Messner, author of Guys Like Me: Five Wars, Five Veterans for Peace
"This book is a real beacon in the growing field of transnational studies and presents a cutting edge historical observation of Latino/a sport in the western hemisphere. José Alamillo’s commanding knowledge of diaspora anchors his scrutiny of the Mexican sporting culture, gender identities and transnational networks. His attractive narrative makes this study very readable, is well-suited for a scholarly and lay audience, and is a must for students in ethnic and gender studies. As well, viewed through a sporting lens, the author’s examination of migration and national identity increases the uniqueness of this compelling work."
~Samuel O. Regalado, author of Viva Baseball!: Latin Major Leaguers and their Special Hunger
"Filled with unforgettable figures, Deportes provides the first transnational history of organized sports as recreation, occupation, and cultural identity among ethnic Mexicans in the Southwest."
~Vicki L. Ruiz, author of From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America
~New Books Network - New Books in Latino Studies
"The field of sports studies is experiencing a renaissance, and José Alamillo is at the forefront of it. In Deportes, Alamillo illustrates his mastery of transnational history by telling the story of the role of sport in Mexican American community formation on both sides of the border during the first half of the 20th century. Our understanding of the Mexican American experience is vitally enriched by this pathbreaking scholar’s well-written and impeccably researched book."
~Public Books
"Deportes offers a hemispheric approach, spanning the end of the 19th century to the years following World War II. The book documents the creation and evolution of a 'sporting Mexican diaspora' for Mexicans, Mexican immigrants to the United States, and Mexican Americans. Alamillo traces the 'imaginary and material interactions between athletes, team managers, and coaches across national borders as they organize, promote, and compete in sports-related activities.'"
~Public Books
"A foundational contribution to interdisciplinary and intersectional analyses of sport in transnational contexts, and a signal work on Mexican American identity creation during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries."
~The Americas
"Alamillo’s broad set of topics and wide source base—including individuals’ stories that ordinarily take a backseat to sports superstars—makes this work an important read for those interested in not only sports and Mexican American history but also gender, U.S.-Mexican relations, immigration, and migration."
