FÚTBOL IN THE HEARTLAND: MEXICAN IMMIGRANTS, TRANSNATIONAL CULTURAL IDENTITY, AND RECREATIONAL SPORT IN OKLAHOMA CITY

Abstract

When immigrants traverse international borders they bring with them many cultural practices and traditions from their lives back home. This research focuses on how a modern sport, fútbol (soccer), operates as a cultural practice that facilitates transnational cultural identities for Mexican immigrants in Oklahoma City. For Mexican immigrants, playing and/or watching recreational fútbol is paramount in the maintenance and performance of their cultural identities in the United States. For these immigrants recreational fútbol is much more than a game; it is a cultural tradition that facilitates connections to hometowns, cities, regions, and nations of origin. Recreational fútbol is also vitally important for men and masculinity in Mexican immigrant communities as many of these men consider fútbol a man’s game and the leagues masculine social spaces. The cultural practices that are a part of the social world of La Liga indicate that being transnational is a performance that relies heavily on a symbolic embodiment of identity, on recreating and maintaining cultural practices and traditions from one’s homeland, and that transnational cultural practices and traditions contribute to those already existing in immigrant receiving destinations.