When Mexicans Could Play Ball: Basketball, Race, and Identity in San Antonio, 1928–1945

In 1939, a team of short, scrappy kids from a vocational school established specifically for Mexican Americans became the high school basketball champions of San Antonio, Texas. Their win, and the ensuing riot it caused, took place against a backdrop of shifting and conflicted attitudes toward Mexican Americans and American nationalism in the WWII era. €œOnly when the Mexicans went from perennial runners-up to champs,€ Garc­a writes, €œdid the emotions boil over.€

The first sports book to look at Mexican American basketball specifically, When Mexicans Could Play Ball is also a revealing study of racism and cultural identity formation in Texas. Using personal interviews, newspaper articles, and game statistics to create a compelling narrative, as well as drawing on his experience as a sports writer, Garc­a takes us into the world of San Antonio€s Sidney Lanier High School basketball team, the Voks, which became a two-time state championship team under head coach William Carson €œNemo€ Herrera. An alumnus of the school himself, Garc­a investigates the school administrators€ project to Americanize the students, Herrera€s skillful coaching, and the team€s rise to victory despite discrimination and violence from other teams and the world outside of the school. Ultimately, Garc­a argues, through their participation and success in basketball at Lanier, the Voks players not only learned how to be American but also taught their white counterparts to question long-held assumptions about Mexican Americans.