Archive for the ‘Sports’ Category
Latino Henry Cejudo Gets Olympic Gold, Gets Stereotyped
4:04 pm By Maegan La Mala · mexico|race|society|Sports · 3 Comments
19 Aug 2008
Latino wrestler Henry Cejudo took home the gold for the U.S. in men’s freestyle wrestling in a dynamic win today over opponent Tomohiro Matsunaga.
According to The L.A. Times, Cejudo, the son of undocumented immigrants, invoked his Mexican heritage as he spoke about his win:
“This is cool. Coming out of a Mexican American background, it feels good to represent the U.S.,” said Cejudo, whowasborn in Los Angeles. “Not too many Mexicans get the chance to do that.”Cejudo’s parents divorced when he was 4 and he saw his father, Jorge, only one more time before he died in Mexico City. But his mother, Nelly Rico, raised a family of six children on her own, bouncing from low-paying jobs in California to New Mexico and Arizona, where the family sometimes slept four to a bed.
It’s a nice story, indeed. But what I personally don’t care for is the way his win is billed as “The American Dream”, supported comments from people who know him make it seem like that it’s a miracle he didn’t turn out to be a criminal in light of his family background. In fact, that’s exactly what they imply:
“He has done an unbelievable job coming from the environment that he came from,” his coach, Terry Brands, said. “Could be in prison. Could be a drug runner. Could be this, could be that. He’s done an unbelievable job of not being a victim.
Is this because he comes from a situation of adversity or because he comes from a situation of adversity and he’s brown? Way to taint an otherwise uplifting story…
Via / LA Times
Argentina’s Olympic Women’s Soccer Team Gets on the Hate Bandwagon
11:32 am By Maegan La Mala · Argentina|Beijing Summer Olympics|China|race|Sports · 3 Comments
19 Aug 2008
When the Spanish sports teams did their offensive eye posing, it was easy to dismiss the racism as coming from Europeans with their own history of conquest. But now the women’s Olympic soccer team from Argentina has been caught doing the same exact “slant-eye” pose, we have to wonder just what the hell is going on that makes people think that this is ok?
Besides the gesture being obviously offensive, there is the dismissal that all three teams have made: that they didn’t mean to offend. Which begs the question, what exactly did they intend? To make us laugh with their antics? To get us excited about China? To reveal a deep desire to be Chinese that they all have? To show us how stupid they are?
In this case payback is a bitch, as they say because Argentina’s women lost 2-0 to China. In fact, they lost all three of their matches.
Via / Who Ate All the Pie
Spain and Chile Triumph in Men’s Tennis
7:26 am By Maegan La Mala · Chile|Spain|Sports|World · 1 Comment
18 Aug 2008Spanish Rafa Nadal is officially the number one tennis player in the world, having swiped away the title from Swiss Roger Federer at Wimbledon a few weeks back. And he further proved his dominance this weekend as he picked up the gold at the Olympics for men’s tennis. Here he is yuckin’ up with the press with the Queen of Spain looking sporty at his side:
Rafa beat Chile’s Fernando Gonzalez, but the defeat left Chile in not such a bad spot: taking home the silver medal for men’s singles. Watching Gonzalez get his medal – the first one for Chile in these Olympics — is quite moving.
Congrats to Rafa and Fernando!
Via / YouTube
Spanish Olympic Tennis Team “Winks” in China Too
10:00 am By Maegan La Mala · Beijing Summer Olympics|China|Controversia|race|Spain|Sports · 1 Comment
15 Aug 2008
Seriously, Spanish Olympic sports teams, cut it the f out! Now the Spanish Olympic Women’s Tennis team poses making “slant eyes” for a camera. Well actually it’s not a new pic, but one that is a few months old.
The latest photo to emerge shows Spanish women tennis players pulling the pose, apparently in anticipation of their Federation Cup match against China in April…
It was apparently taken after the team defeated Italy in the quarter-finals of the competition – the premier team contest for women tennis players – in February. Wine glasses are visible on the table in front of the party…
The photo is still visible on the official website of the Spanish Tennis Federation, where it was spotted.
The original is captioned “Estamos preparados para China”, which translates as “We are prepared for China”.
Via / The Latin Americanist
This is Why I Don’t Follow the Olympics : Spanish Basketball Team “Winks” Offensive
4:54 pm By Maegan La Mala · Beijing Summer Olympics|Controversia|race|Spain|Sports · 1 Comment
13 Aug 2008
No, no according to the Spanish Basketball team, they aren’t making an offensive, stereotype promoting gesture in that team photo. Your eyes and sensibilities are wrong. They are not making “slant eyes” they are “winking” and felt it was an appropriate gesture and felt that it was “somewhat loving”.
Someone needs to smack the Spanish basketball team with a serrano ham.
Olympics in China Have Officially Begun (Yawn)
6:49 pm By Maegan La Mala · China|Controversia|Sports · Comments Off
8 Aug 2008
Excuse me for not getting all excited about the Olympics. I’m just not a sports person (except for South American futbol) and the whole scene of President Bush going to China to support U.S. athletes and speaking about human rights is just a little surreal, to put it mildly.
That said, the 2008 Summer Olympics have begun in China with an over four hour opening ceremony.
The BBC seems to have some of the better coverage but good luck trying to see the events online.
Image Via / BBC
Latin@s Underrepresented on Olympic Team
11:37 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Sports · 2 Comments
6 Aug 2008
Apparently it’s a problem that Latin@s are not as represented on the Olympic team as they are in the general populations. Our lack of Olympic involvement probably has something to do with our evidently overwhelmingly sedentary ways.
I’m really not sure what is going on with the constant influx of news stories about fat, lazy, unhealthy Latin@s recently, but I’m getting kind of sick of them. Especially since nobody really seems to know what a Latin@ even is.
Witness the following paragraph from the SI article:
Swimming, unlike track and field, has a scarcity of both blacks and Hispanics in its upper echelons – the 56-member Olympic swimming and diving squad has one black and no Hispanics. USA Swimming, the sport’s governing body, has acknowledged the problem by launching extensive learn-to-swim programs in black and Hispanic communities.
I guess that Latin@ swimmer, Dara Torres, doesn’t count as “hispanic”? Sure, one Latin@ is not much better than no Latin@s, but it’s really hard to take an analysis of underrepresentation seriously when the most obvious example of representation is completly omitted. What other Latin@ Olympian has been completly written out of existence to make a point?
Border Patrol Goes After Nascar Crowd for New Recruits
1:23 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Immigration|Sports · 1 Comment
24 Jul 2008
Not to stereotype or anything, but what kind of recruit does the U.S. Border Patrol hope to find by sponsoring a NASCAR racer? The same kind of candidate that they would get by having a Blackwater sponsored racer?
Why not recruit from the San Diego Minutemen? Seems they have the whole speech down packed based on how they acted outside the NCLR conference.
If NASCAR wants to gain fans in Mexico they may need to rethink their approach.
Via / Machochip, The Spy Who Billed Me, Citizen Orange, NASCAR
More on the Tour de France
23 Jul 2008It was a thrilling finish today for Spaniard, Carlos Sastre. The thirty-three-year old charged away from the peloton on the last climb of the day and eventually won the race by over two minutes. Although his current lead looks strong (and probably would have ensured a biker like Lance Armstrong the overall win) Sastre is not taking anything for granted:
“I want to take things day by day. Tomorrow I think we’ll spend our time regaining as much energy as possible.
“In the time-trial, against riders like Evans and Menchov, I don’t think I have much of a chance. Right now, I don’t want to think about 1:34. All I want to do is recuperate ahead of Saturday.”
The man I was really rooting for, Alejandro Valverde, looks as if he is riding at the top of his game right now, in spite of losing time in the final standings. He finished with the main group of riders, and seemed to be coordinating attacks against Tour favorite, Cadel Evens, with Sastre’s teammates. Taking one for Spain like the true King of the Mountain he is.
The True King of the Mountians
11:36 am By Maegan La Mala · france|Spain|Sports · Comments Off
21 Jul 2008
This year’s Tour de France is the most competitive (and hence, most interesting) it’s been in years. I admit to being obsessed with this year’s tour (it has nothing to do with large groups of men in skin tight suits pumping up huge hills. I swear.), especially with my main man, Alejandro Valverde and his team Caisse d’Epargne. Valverde and Caisse d’Epargne have both taken some hits this Tour: Valverde began the Tour with a huge crash and Caisse d’Epargne just lost one of it’s strongest members (Oscar Pereiro) to a horrible crash. But Valverde has vowed to fight on. And in yesterday’s stage, he did exactly that, fighting through the uphill climbs in the Alps to move up into 9th place from 14th. The best part was when Tour announcers breathlessly proclaimed Valverde was “biking like the true Spanish King of the Mountain he is.”
I love anybody who can be proclaimed a ‘true’ King of the Mountain. Mhm.
Hola!
VivirLatino is a daily publication published by Mamita Mala Media, dedicated to featuring all the latest politics, culture, entertainment of interest to the diverse Latin@ diaspora.
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