The dual-language (English and Spanish) ¡Pleibol! In the Barrios and the Big Leagues / En los barrios y las grandes ligas takes readers on a journey into the heart and history of U.S. Latina/o baseball. The extraordinary stories of Latinas/os alongside the artifacts of their remarkable lives demonstrate the historic role baseball has played as a social and cultural force within Latino communities across the nation for over a century and how Latinos in particular have influenced and changed the game. Latinas/os have celebrated a shared cultural heritage, made a living, and fought for rights and justice through baseball. These stories represent experiences to which many people can relate: how one becomes part of a community; how the game can bring people together regardless of race, class, and gender; and how fans can participate in the culture of the sport as easily as players can on the field. Through eight thematic chapters, the authors illustrate how baseball has provided an important platform from which to celebrate and challenge what it means to be American. Each chapter features stories and artifacts from the Smithsonian exhibits of the same name paired with voices from the community of scholars, players, and enthusiasts who have contributed to the larger pan-Smithsonian Latinos and Baseball collecting and exhibition initiative. The variety of stories and objects included in this volume brings our seemingly disparate pasts and present together to reveal how baseball is more than simply a game. The history of Latinos and baseball is this quintessential American story.
Margaret N. Salazar-Porzio is a curator of Latina/o history and culture in the Division of Cultural and Community Life at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Her previous exhibit Many Voices, One Nation and accompanying anthology, Many Voices, One Nation: Material Culture Reflections on Race and Migration in the United States (Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2017), examined American cultural identity through immigration and migration. She is project director of the exhibit ¡Pleibol! In the Barrios and the Big Leagues, which will be opening at the National Museum of American History along with the its simultaneous Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services national tour in October 2020.
Adrian Burgos Jr. is a professor of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His books, Playing America’s Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line (University of California Press, 2007) and Cuban Star: How One Negro League Owner Changed the Face of Baseball (Hill & Wang, 2011), have focused on the experience of Latinos within the United States as it illuminates processes of migration, racialization, identity, and labor in sport and society. He has consulted on museum exhibits and documentaries on Latinos and baseball, including the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s ¡Viva Baseball! and Ken Burns’s The Tenth Inning.
Robin Morey is the curatorial assistant for developing the exhibit ¡Pleibol! In the Barrios and the Big Leagues in the Division of Cultural and Community Life at the National Museum of American History. As an intern at Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, she assisted with the Latin music seriesTradiciones, and she later served as a Latino Museum Studies Fellow at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, conducting research for the Music and Migration: Sounds of California project. A lifelong baseball fan, she worked for the Triple-A Durham Bulls for eight years helping to increase Latino engagement at the ballpark.
The dual-language (English and Spanish) ¡Pleibol! In the Barrios and the Big Leagues / En los barrios y las grandes ligas takes readers on a journey into the heart and history of U.S. Latina/o baseball. The extraordinary stories of Latinas/os alongside the artifacts of their remarkable lives demonstrate the historic role baseball has played as a social and cultural force within Latino communities across the nation for over a century and how Latinos in particular have influenced and changed the game. Latinas/os have celebrated a shared cultural heritage, made a living, and fought for rights and justice through baseball. These stories represent experiences to which many people can relate: how one becomes part of a community; how the game can bring people together regardless of race, class, and gender; and how fans can participate in the culture of the sport as easily as players can on the field. Through eight thematic chapters, the authors illustrate how baseball has provided an important platform from which to celebrate and challenge what it means to be American. Each chapter features stories and artifacts from the Smithsonian exhibits of the same name paired with voices from the community of scholars, players, and enthusiasts who have contributed to the larger pan-Smithsonian Latinos and Baseball collecting and exhibition initiative. The variety of stories and objects included in this volume brings our seemingly disparate pasts and present together to reveal how baseball is more than simply a game. The history of Latinos and baseball is this quintessential American story.
Author
Margaret N. Salazar-Porzio is a curator of Latina/o history and culture in the Division of Cultural and Community Life at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Her previous exhibit Many Voices, One Nation and accompanying anthology, Many Voices, One Nation: Material Culture Reflections on Race and Migration in the United States (Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2017), examined American cultural identity through immigration and migration. She is project director of the exhibit ¡Pleibol! In the Barrios and the Big Leagues, which will be opening at the National Museum of American History along with the its simultaneous Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services national tour in October 2020.
Adrian Burgos Jr. is a professor of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His books, Playing America’s Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line (University of California Press, 2007) and Cuban Star: How One Negro League Owner Changed the Face of Baseball (Hill & Wang, 2011), have focused on the experience of Latinos within the United States as it illuminates processes of migration, racialization, identity, and labor in sport and society. He has consulted on museum exhibits and documentaries on Latinos and baseball, including the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s ¡Viva Baseball! and Ken Burns’s The Tenth Inning.
Robin Morey is the curatorial assistant for developing the exhibit ¡Pleibol! In the Barrios and the Big Leagues in the Division of Cultural and Community Life at the National Museum of American History. As an intern at Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, she assisted with the Latin music seriesTradiciones, and she later served as a Latino Museum Studies Fellow at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, conducting research for the Music and Migration: Sounds of California project. A lifelong baseball fan, she worked for the Triple-A Durham Bulls for eight years helping to increase Latino engagement at the ballpark.
