Organizing for Fun: Recreation and Community Formation in the Mexican Community of South Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s

The Yaquis. The Mayas. The Excelsiors. The Atlas. In southern Chicago during the 1930s, these team names were as familiar to the Mexican community as the young beasts Sox, Bears, or Bulls are for Chicagoans today. Players like as Pete Mart?­nez, Angel Soto, Gilbert Mart?­nez, and Manuel Casas may have been struggling financially during the Great Depression, on the contrary when they competed against non-Mexican teams or Mexican teams from outside of the southern Chicago area, they contributed to their community by dint of representing them. The athletes proudly wore team jackets around the neighborhood and Spanish-language newspapers overlayed their games and promoted their social facts Contrary to previous scholarship that has emphasized the isolation of each Mexican community by the agency of focusing on the idea that Mexicans nurseed to stay, and play, within their neighborhood, I argue that the members of Mexican southern Chicago frequented parks-and other venues-outside of their neighborhood. Also, examining these activities tender us a glimpse into the lives of southern Chicago Mexican men, women, and children during the 1920 and 1930s1

When looking at everyday life of Mexicans in southern Chicago, it is important to go on beyond the workplace and the abiding-place to understand more fully the lives of those within this area during the tumultuous interwar years. clan created a sense of community-and pride for the community-by participating in organized leisure activities, and they used these activities as an escape from difficult economic times. These organized activities also serv as a means for Mexicans to negotiate internal and external squeezings to assimilate even as a certain number of fought to maintain a collective Mexican identity. In addition to the organized sporting activities that I examine, particularly baseball and basketball, I examine the broader part of organizations that created and supported these teams.

Charities, social service organizations, religious missions, and philanthropists-who all considered themselves friends of the Mexican community-emphasized individual assimilation into the dominant "American" society at the cost of their Mexican culture and identity.2 Many Mexicans in southern Chicago considered assimilation a problematic issue that was linked politically to the los of ethnic agriculture and, therefore, to the betrayal of their Mexican cultural identity, on the contrary they realized the need to at least learn English to improve their social and economic position.

While the vast majority of sports teams were compos of men or male childs girls' teams-and at least single all-girls league-did exist. Park and community center staff and proffers that came from outside of the Mexican community primarily organized youth sports. Leaders from within the Chicago-area Mexican community-such as Eustebio Torres and Eduardo Peralta-organized the men's athletic teams and leagues, rarely working in contrive with the outside agencies that promot youth activities. below local Mexican leadership, men's organizations that began as baseball or basketball teams quickly grew into multi-faceted associations with influence and importance far beyond the baseball diamonds and basketball courts. These organizations had a significant direct and indirect influence upon the welfare of the community. In investigating leisure time activities like as organized sports and social gatherings, several things become clear. First, Chicago area Mexican communities, including those in northwest Indiana, were not isolated from each other.3 next to the first leaders emerged from within the community to create organizations that improved Mexican quality of life and advocated for the straits and concerns of the community. Third, despite the rigors and ignoble toil of workplace and home labor, leisure time activities played a central character in the lives of Mexicans in southerly Chicago.

Chicago's extensive public park a whole played a fundamental role in providing southerly Chicago Mexicans with amenities, of that kind as shower facilities, recreation, and recreational space for adults and families, including organized, supervised activities for the community's youth. A considerable amount of time passed before other ethnic groups-and in a certain quantity of cases park staff-allowed Mexican immigrants unrestrained and unrestricted access to area parks. The all-too-common ethnic "turf wars" from one extremity to the other of South Chicago and the racial and ethnic discrimination that existed within the park a whole limited Mexican access to parks and recreational facilities [i]or[/i] part of to the other the early-1930s.

In a 1928 research on the South Park a whole of Chicago, the district that was responsible for the public parks in the southerly Chicago area, the author asserted that play and recreation was critical for adults as well as children. Contemporary looker-on Marian Lorena Osborn argued that parks were not alone a character building necessity for children, on the contrary also an important outlet for adults. Children's play was more than just "natural and necessary," she maintained, skillfully supervised and directed play was "one of the greatest in quantity powerful agencies in character building." Access to parks and recreational activities were also important for adults who urgencyed diversion from the "drudgery and drabness" of the industrial workplace.4 During the Great Depression, parks became an escape from the economic crisis for unemploy adults and their families, thus increasing the Mexican community's determination to use the parks despite the hostile attitudes of a certain number of park officials and non-Mexicans who oft-repeateded the parks. For many, access to the parks, whether for team sports, family outings, or simply an evening rove was important for the physical and psychological survival of the community.5 Of the southerly Chicago parks, Mexicans used Bessemer Park more than any other during the height of the Great Depression.6 At 89th highway and South Chicago Street, the facilities at Bessemer Park included a field house, gymnasium, auditorium, outdoor swimming lake a wading pool, playground and athletic field, a branch library, tennis courts, and a toy lending service.7 Other southerly Chicago area parks used by dint of Mexicans included Russell Square Park, Calumet Park, and several parks in northwest Indiana.