UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Fútbol Americano : Immigration, Social Capital, and Youth Soccer in Southern California Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4436w58z Author Keyes, David Gordon Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO Fútbol Americano: Immigration, Social Capital, and Youth Soccer in Southern California A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology by David Gordon Keyes Committee in charge: Professor David Pedersen, Chair Professor Wayne Cornelius Professor Robert Edelman Professor Joseph Hankins Professor Nancy Postero 2015 © David Gordon Keyes, 2015 All rights reserved Signature Page The dissertation of David Gordon Keyes is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Chair University of California, San Diego 2015 iii Table of Contents Signature Page ............................................................................................. iii Table of Contents ......................................................................................... iv List of Figures .............................................................................................. vi Vita ............................................................................................................... vii Abstract of the Dissertation ........................................................................ ix Chapter 1. Introduction ................................................................................ 1 Immigrant Assimilation .................................................................................................. 8 Social Capital ................................................................................................................ 15 Soccer and the Place of Immigrants in the United States ............................................. 21 “Father without a son” .................................................................................................. 23 Roadmap of the Dissertation ......................................................................................... 27 A Few Notes on Terminology and Scope ..................................................................... 29 Chapter 2. The Domestication of American Soccer .................................32 Soccer, the Perpetually Un-American Sport ................................................................. 35 The Triple Domestication of American Soccer ............................................................ 41 Domestication Number One: Making Soccer American ........................................... 42 Domestication Number Two: Making Soccer Safe ................................................... 44 Domestication Number Three: Making Soccer Part of the Family .......................... 48 Why Los Angeles? ........................................................................................................ 51 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 61 Chapter 3. The Two Worlds of Youth Soccer ...........................................63 The Development of Two Soccer Worlds .................................................................... 65 The Suburban Youth Soccer Industrial Complex ......................................................... 74 Latino Soccer ................................................................................................................ 80 Youth Soccer as a Dual Labor Market .......................................................................... 84 iv Chapter 4. Soccer in the Latino Community ............................................92 The Aguilas as a Mexican Team ................................................................................... 94 No Money, More Problems......................................................................................... 100 Sports and Ethnicity .................................................................................................... 104 Chapter 5. The Integration of Youth Soccer...........................................115 Two Teams, Two Stories ............................................................................................ 120 The Harriers: From (Nearly) All White to (Nearly) All Latino .............................. 125 The Quake: Leche with a Tinge of Café ................................................................. 128 The Politics of Scholarships........................................................................................ 130 The Growth of Inequality and the Subjectivities of Flexibility .................................. 143 Suburban Soccer and the Habitus of Affluence .......................................................... 154 Cultural Explanations for Economic Problems........................................................... 157 Soccer as Struggle ....................................................................................................... 160 Chapter 6. Go South, Young Man: Pursuing The Mexican Dream .....166 Excavating the Next Generation of Talent .................................................................. 169 The Reverse Migration of Mexican American Players............................................... 181 The Ethical Dilemmas of Global Player Migration .................................................... 189 Chapter 7. Conclusion ...............................................................................196 What Does the Future Hold?....................................................................................... 202 Assimilation: Is There Space for the Decline of Ethnic Distinctions? ....................... 206 Social Capital: It Takes More than a Soccer Field ..................................................... 209 Works Cited ...............................................................................................219 v List of Figures Figure 2.1: AYSO promotional poster, 1966 .................................................................... 50 Figure 3.1: AYSO Players, 1965-1974 ............................................................................. 66 Figure 3.2: USYSA Registered Players, 1974-2000 ......................................................... 68 Figure 3.3: Household income of families of core soccer players in the United States ... 69 Figure 3.4: Mean age at entry into organized/team sports by household income and race/ethnicity ..................................................................................................................... 70 Figure 3.5: Racial/ethnic background of CalSouth players compared to total population of counties served by CalSouth ............................................................................................. 71 Figure 3.6: Hispanic population in San Diego County ..................................................... 73 Figure 3.7: Median household income in San Diego County ........................................... 74 Figure 3.8: Number of Teams, Total Revenue, and Revenue per Player per Club .......... 81 Figure 5.1: Percentage of Latino players on youth national teams compared to percentage of Latinos in total population in United States, January-August 2014 ........................... 121 Figure 5.2: Percent of Latino players per club compared to percent of under-18 Hispanics in MSA, 2012-2014 ........................................................................................................ 124 Figure 5.3: Median income in the United States, 1967-2013 ......................................... 146 Figure 5.4: Manufacturing and Service Sectors as Percentage of Total Workforce, 1950- 1990................................................................................................................................. 148 Figure 6.1: Explaining the Reverse Migration of Mexican American Players ............... 188 vi Vita Education 2015 Ph.D. Anthropology, University of California, San Diego. 2009 M.A., Anthropology, University of California, San Diego. 2005 M.Ed., Early Childhood Education, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. 2002 B.A. Human Development and Social Relations, Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana. Publications 2014 Cornelius, Wayne, Alejandra Lizardi, and David Keyes, eds. Return Migration, Sexuality, and Health in a Transnational Mexican Community. Guadalajara, Jalisco: Universidad de Guadalajara. 2014 Salgado, Hugo, Isa Haviland, Marcella Hernandez, Diana Lozano, Ruby Osoria, David Keyes, Eastern Kang, and María Luisa Zúñiga. “Perceived Discrimination and Religiosity as Potential Mediating Factors Between Migration and Depressive Symptoms: a Transnational Study of an Indigenous Mayan Population.” Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health. 2013 FitzGerald, David, Jorge Hernandez-Diaz, David Keyes, and Geoffrey Fjotasek, eds. The Wall Between Us: An Indigenous Community in Mexico and the United States. La Jolla, CA: Center for Comparative Immigration Studies. 2013 Keyes, David. “The Domestication of American Soccer.” In Soccer Culture in America: Essays on the World's Sport in Red, White and Blue, edited by Yuya Kiuchi. Jefferson, NC: McFarland Publishers. 2010 Aguilar, Arturo, Georgia Hartmann, David Keyes, Lisa Markman, and Max Matus. “Coping with La Crisis.” in Mexican Migration and the U.S. Economic Crisis: A Transnational Perspective, edited by Wayne A. Cornelius, David Fitzgerald, Pedro Lewin Fischer, and Leah Muse- Orlinoff. La Jolla, CA: Center for Comparative Immigration Studies. vii 2010 Keyes, David, Cristina Fernández, Norma Rodríguez, Diana Cervera, and Luis Manzanero Rodriguez. “Reshaping Community Participation: Tunkaseños in a Binational Context.” in Mexican Migration and the U.S. Economic Crisis: A Transnational Perspective, edited by Wayne A. Cornelius, David Fitzgerald, Pedro Lewin Fischer, and Leah Muse- Orlinoff. La Jolla, CA: Center for Comparative Immigration Studies. viii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Fútbol Americano: Immigration, Social Capital, and Youth Soccer in Southern California by David Gordon Keyes Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology University of California, San Diego, 2015 Professor David Pedersen, Chair In my dissertation, I take up the question of immigrant assimilation in a unique way, using youth soccer as a lens to investigate the topic. I examine the role that the sport has played in the assimilation of immigrants, focusing particularly on its potential to develop social capital between immigrants and non-immigrants. ix