As the end of Hispanic Heritage Month draws near, I found myself interested in the barriers faced by Latina/o athletes in the United States. A really great New York Times article written in 2002 discussed the specific cultural challenges for Latina girls in sports. Poverty, language barriers, obesity, and high dropout rates prevent many girls from joining athletic programs. (These factors are all connected, btw. They are perhaps the most visible symptoms of racial inequity as it affects Latina/o communities in the US.) Cultural traditions also frequently place Latina girls in charge of household chores more often than their brothers. In addition, competitive sports are often seen as unfeminine and therefore undesirable activities for girls. Also consider the lack of Latina athletic role models; can you name three professional Hispanic female athletes? I can’t.
The New York Times cites these reasons for the under-representation of Hispanic girls in high school sports programs.
[Side Note: When I did a Google search for “famous Latina athletes,” Google responded, “Did you mean ‘famous latino athletes?’” It reminds me of that period of time when typing “she invented” into a Google search elicited the automatic response, “Did you mean ‘he invented?’” The bloggers went wild over that one (for good reason—check out this feminist critique), and I believe that Google administrators went in and manually changed the auto response. Ah, the evidence of a sexist society shall appear in the form of Google’s best attempt to make helpful suggestions for search term typos.]
USA Today also discusses how traditional household roles for Latina girls often prevent them from playing. Who’s going to take care of the baby sister while Mom’s at work? Who’s going to cook dinner when parents need to make money for the family? These domestic responsibilities often fall upon the teenage girls, and limit girls’ time to engage in after school activities, sports, etc. In Mexico, for example, most schools don’t offer after school activities. The afternoon is for helping the family, not for playing sports. That custom carries over across the border for many first generation families moving to the United States from Mexico.
"The racial/ethnic sub-group to benefit the most from sports participation is Latina girls," Women's Sports Foundation executive director Donna Lopiano says. "There's no question that if we can solve the problem of parental support ... and create a more nurturing, motivating environment ... that we can make some great contributions to Hispanic girls in terms of their future health and well-being." (USA Today)
While I can’t blame struggling families for asking their daughters to help, I do hope that Hispanic American girls will be able to overcome social barriers that make athletic participation difficult. It would be great to see more Latina girls and women playing sports.
