Description:
You know the scene: amateur soccer players battling over the ball, spectators cheering from the sidelines, vendors selling their wares from carts. Over the past half century, immigration from Latin America has transformed the public landscape in the United States, and numerous communities are witnessing one of the hallmarks of this transformation: the emergence of park soccer. In Fútbol in the Park, David Trouille takes us into the world of Latino soccer players who regularly play in an upscale Los Angeles neighborhood where they are not always welcome. Together on the soccer field, sharing beers after the games, and occasionally exchanging taunts or blows, the men build relationships and a sense of who they are. Through these engrossing, revealing, and at times immortalizing activities, they forge new identities, friendships, and job opportunities, giving themselves a renewed sense of self-worth and community. As the United States becomes increasingly polarized over issues of immigration and culture, Fútbol in the Park offers a close look at the individual lives and experiences of migrants.
Review Quotes: "Ethnographies of social life demand the careful, cautious, compassionate, and critical presentation of scenes: inscriptions of places near to us--the scholarly audience--or far away. Many are locales that we espy--and pass by--with a stranger's gaze. David Trouille's Fútbol in the Park is an exemplary contribution to this tradition of revealed worlds."-- "American Journal of Sociology"