10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Home on the Field, January 3, 2007
This review is from: A Home on the Field: How One Championship Team Inspires Hope for the Revival of Small Town America (Hardcover)
A Home on the Field
"That which hath been is that which shall be...And there is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes I:9
Assimilation of new Americans can be a slow difficult process. But it is not a new process. And while Congress and the country debate immigration issues, hopefully they may look to Siler City and see how a town and a team came together and learned how to share.
In early 2000 a group of Latino high school students in Siler City, NC (population 8,000) petitioned to start a soccer team. The locals were skeptical. "What is this sport, and what are they doing on our football field, which is sacred ground?" In the end the students won a state championship and found A Home on the Field. They are striving to find a home in America too.
For the past 15 years this country has been experiencing a silent migration of Mexicans and other Latin Americans into the interior of the country, finding jobs at places like the chicken processing plant in Siler City. Author Paul Cuadros (son of Peruvian immigrants) blames the migration in part on NAFTA which allowed the Mexican state run economy to procure heavily subsidized American corn to feed their poor, displacing Mexican farmers. Cuadros also blames Mexico and its ruling class for never really providing adequate education or meaningful jobs to create a middle class from the poor.
Inevitably, the population moves to greater opportunities. This has been the story of U.S. immigration since its founding. But the old ties don't break easily. They never do. The immigrant workers still remain largely isolated by language and culture from mainstream American society.
Cuadros points out that while he was born a minority, he will not die one. Given anticipated population trends, by 2050 half the U.S. population will be non-white, and half of that will be Hispanic. There will be no one majority, so the concept of minorities will lose their meaning. How we deal with this transition is a major challenge of the 21st Century. Cuadros likens the transition to the stages of grieving, from denial to anger and eventually to acceptance. Siler City is well along in that process, helped to a great extent by its state championship soccer team. But it wasn't easy.
Early on there was a tremendous anti-immigrant reaction by the locals, capped off by a rally in the town square featuring David Duke, former grand dragon of the KKK and erstwhile politician. Duke bashed the poultry plant and its workers, but rather than continue the rally with a march on the poultry plant, he and his entourage adjourned to lunch at a local restaurant where they filled up on fried chicken.
The hypocrisy is revealing. They don't want the workers and their families, but they sure want their chicken. Likewise, Americans want their tomatoes and blueberries picked, their lawns manicured, their Christmas trees cut and their meat packed. And they want it done cheaply, efficiently and invisibly.
This reflects the great dichotomy of the current immigration issue. This immigration is motivated by the same American ideals that brought all of our ancestors to these shores. America is the dream of a better life for oneself and one's children. Siler City is being transformed by that dream from a sleepy Southern town that was slowly dying, into a robust growing community. Spurred by the Latino labor, the rising tide is lifting all ships.
But for the immigrants there is still a great struggle. The Latino kids frequently hurt themselves as they try to deal with the larger society. They drop out and reject the system that rejects them. Self-esteem in a foreign homeland is a big issue, as are the deep ties to family in Mexico. Family often takes priority over getting through school and getting ahead in American society.
Throughout the whole story the author, even though born in the U.S. and a successful writer, is always striving for acceptance. His goal in winning the state championship is to have the pictures of the Latino championship soccer players on the high school's "Wall of Champions" along with the black and white faces already there.
And soon, "that which hath been is that which shall be."
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Immigration policy before soccer, October 14, 2006
This review is from: A Home on the Field: How One Championship Team Inspires Hope for the Revival of Small Town America (Hardcover)
This is an interesting book but the reason why is a bit illusive. The first page and the author's background indicate that it should be about immigration policy. The title and the bulk of the read say that it is about soccer. And buried in the story is the role of high school sports in shaping young peoples' lives and the debate about the relative roles of club soccer and high school soccer in developing the game in the United States. The game may be different, but the stories of the boys and how they formed a winning team is similar for instance to the stories told about boys in "Friday Night Lights." A select few become high school sports stars in a small town and on a state championship team, with all the notoriety that entails. However, one key difference is that although the boys grow up, go to school and live lives of American high school students until they graduate (or drop out), then they must blend into the faceless mass of illegals without the opportunities or rights that their fellow graduates have. Caudros explains the reason 12 million illegal immigrants are here as he humanizes the problem. It should be clear by now that these persons are not leaving 12 million citizens unemployed or even underemployed. The jobs in poultry and meat processing are not being filled and need the influx of illegal workers. Further, the companies operating the plants are eager and willing employers of the illegal immigrants. The illegal workers pay taxes, shop in the local stores, and worship in the town's churches. Deporting all the illegals described here could have a disastrous impact on a community like Siler City. The stories told here - and the facts presented - need to become part of any discussion of immigration policy and what we will do about 12 million workers and their families. This book should be on the top of any list dealing with immigration policy.
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