Presumed Entitled: Mexican Soccer and the Mexican Middle Class

This morning I woke up at 5am because I could not sleep any longer. I think I was excited to find out the result of Mexico’s soccer match against New Zealand. The game was played on the Kiwis’ home turf, so the game occurred live at midnight local time. My excitement came from the fact that this would be the final opportunity for the Mexican Men’s National Team to qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

The Mexican team was playing the second of a two-game playoff to decide which of these national teams would advance to the finals next summer. Mexico has long been a soccer powerhouse in the North American region, qualifying easily at the top of the list of its competitors. The expectation at the beginning of the qualifying stage for the upcoming World Cup was no different. The Mexican Under-17 team won the World Cup for that age group in 2011 and in 2012 the Mexican Men beat Brazil with authority at the London Olympics, enabling them to bring home a gold medal. Given that some of the very same players who brought home these championships would be playing for Mexico in the lead up to the tournament for the ultimate soccer prize, hopes were justifiably high. But the team seemed to implode, scoring infrequently, losing numerous matches, and most notably for true fans, playing really ugly soccer; the game after all is known as the “beautiful game,” as just as much credit is given to teams who play artfully and tie or even lose, as is given to victors.

Mexico’s biggest soccer embarrassments this year related to the United States. First, they lost twice to the United States at Azteca Stadium, a location where the Mexican team had never lost before to ANY team. The embarrassment was compounded by several facts. The U.S. team has historically been very weak at soccer, although in the past 20 years, since the U.S. hosted the World Cup, the team has slowly but surely improved, giving many world soccer powers a run for their money. Within the past 10 years they emerged as Mexico’s main competitors in the North American soccer region, also known as CONCACAF. This rivalry, like many in soccer, had lots to do with politics and history off the field. Mexico has had to live in the shadow of the United States since half of its territory was taken during the Mexican-American War. Many Mexicans see its poverty, corruption, drug problems, and the outmigration of its citizens as more than a little bit related to American imperialism.  The one area where Mexico has been able to maintain supremacy has been on the soccer pitch; however, that all changed this year with the U.S. qualifying at the top of the region. And to add further insult, Mexico was all but eliminated from the tournament with a resounding loss to Costa Rica, and was only saved in the very last minutes by the fact that the Americans beat Panama. The U.S. win did not allow Mexico to qualify, but only to play New Zealand in the playoff for an at-large spot at the World Cup.

So, in the wee hours of the morning, before work and before the kids woke up, I watched as Mexico regained its footing, albeit against an opponent that had very little chance of winning. After a first game win of 5-1, Mexico won again with a score of 4-2, thus sending them to Brazil. In the post game analysis, one of the ESPN announcers noted that a big part of Mexico’s lackluster effort appeared to be psychological. Having tasted recent high profile victories, Mexico lost one of its greatest attributes: hard work.

Many of the players who played on the national team for most of the tournament were remarkable because they represented a truly elite level of play measured by their club teams. Mexican players usually play only in Mexico’s league. The Mexican Soccer League (La Liga MX) is one of the better leagues in the world, but it is not among the elite. The elite leagues include the English Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, and the Italian Serie A. These leagues pay in the tens of millions of dollars for the best players from around the world to play in their countries. Mexican players only recently have been represented at this level on sizable scale. The Mexican coach for most of the qualifying round understandably relied on these players as the backbone of his team. While these players had immense natural talent, they seemed to sleep on the field, indifferent and dispassionate to the reality that they were regularly losing. This ultimately cost the players a space on the roster and the two coaches who stood steadfastly by them their jobs.

The ESPN analyst said that the iteration of the team that existed prior to the New Zealand matches surely had skill, but suffered from what he called, “entitlement.” They thought that they didn’t have to work to get to the finals. They had become accustomed to being winners and no longer had the hunger to strive or struggle.

In Spanish, a term that is used to characterize the affluent is “presumido,” which literally means presumed. More figuratively it means arrogant or conceited. But, to presume that one is great before having put in the work is fitting here.

It is interesting to me that this recent success has had a paradoxical effect. The soccer team also seems to be a microcosm of Mexican society as a whole. The use of soccer as a metaphor for a country’s collective character and identity is not new; just this Saturday the New York Times profiled prominent Mexican author, Juan Villoro, who is known for using soccer as a metaphor to explain Mexico. The New York Times then ran a piece on Tuesday that focused on Mexico’s emerging, yet fragile middle class. This topic has been in the news quite a bit over the past year. It runs counter to the long-held narrative that Mexico is a completely poor, third world country; rather, now it is truly an emerging economy. But much like its soccer team, there are paradoxical effects, such as increased obesity, a sense of anomie and despair, and quite frankly some frivolous laziness, as was seen in the hit film about a Mexican upper class family, “We are the Nobles.” In that film a self-made father tricks his insolent children into getting jobs, so they can reconnect with the value of self-reliance and work. I hope that Mexico will take this lesson to heart if it is ever to achieve the greatness that seems to always elude it. But based on a recent trip to Mexico, I fear that classism and arrogance may rise, for I witnessed it firsthand, and Mexico will only have achieved a devil’s bargain.

Learning How to Die Through Education

In October 2002, public intellectual, philosophy professor, and activist, Cornel West made his public return to Harvard University after a feud with the then president of Harvard, Larry Summers. Summers had accused West of weak scholarship and strongly suggested in a one on one meeting that he be a more productive scholar. This type of admonition might not be unusual for a colleague or a chair to give to a newly minted Ph.D. at the assistant professor rank; however, West was a University Professor at Harvard, the highest possible rank one could achieve as a faculty member there. He had also published numerous academic books on the serious scholarly topics of philosophy, religion, politics, and race. Summers seemed to believe that West’s forays into rap and poetry, as well as his numerous media appearances (and acting in two of The Matrix films), belittled his, and by extension Harvard’s, esteem in the academy. West did not see it that way. He believed that he had rightfully earned the respect of the highest levels of academia, and had shaped entire fields, particularly African American studies, and that he would now turn to spreading his intellectual gospel to the public, rather than keeping knowledge in the isolated tower of the university. West, rather than endure what he perceived to be an insult and lack of respect that would likely be ongoing during Summer’s tenure, decided to leave for a professorship at Princeton. This October evening in 2002 would be his defiant return, arranged by Harvard colleagues, and I happened to have the good fortune of being present.

The occasion for his return was the monthly “Saturday School” at Harvard Law School. Harvard Law Professor, Charles Ogletree, who is African American, started the Saturday School years before. Law students of color sought Mr. Ogletree out for mentorship and solace at a time when the student body and curriculum of Harvard Law School, and pretty much any law school, for that matter, did not represent the diversity of the country at the time; in other words, there were virtually no black folk to be found in the classrooms or the texts. In an effort to provide solace, camaraderie, and enriching knowledge that celebrated the contributions of minority scholars, Ogletree held these regular Saturday meetings. They eventually became institutionalized and supported by the institution, but they nonetheless maintained their radical flair. The main speaker on this Saturday was Cornel West.

The Saturday School had grown enormously over the years. On this particular night there was much anticipation and an overflowing crowd in one of Harvard Law School’s lecture halls buzzed with anticipation of the return of Professor West. There were easily 200 people crammed into a space not meant to accommodate that many, with people lining the walls and the aisles. When West entered the room from the rear, climbing over people in the aisles, giving high fives and shaking students’ hands along the way, the excitement in the crowd rose and then descended into a dramatic hush as Professor West approached the podium. West spoke in poetic verse, as if he were preaching on a Sunday morning. His tone descended and rose as he emphasized his points. About five minutes into his talk, he began to get very quiet as he meditated on the purpose of education and learning. With emphasis he then said, “Education is learning how to die. It is a setting loose, a giving up.” This is a thought that has strongly resonated with me to this day. That evening and that thought in particular is a very fond memory I have of my time in Massachusetts.

Having been through a great deal of formal education, I sometimes feel that I have died a thousand times. Coming from a Mexican immigrant family with parents who had high school degrees, who had limited familiarity with American colleges, who while middle class in income, were still pretty working class in their trades, a hairdresser and phone repair supervisor, university life was a bit different from the intellectual life I had at home.  Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist, reflected on his own working class roots in Southern France and the acculturation process he had to go through as a student at the University of Paris. A brilliant scholar, he likely was intellectually equal if not superior to his classmates, yet he struggled at times because he did not possess the insider knowledge, values and practices that were the implicit currency of the most favored students. He termed this knowledge of how to be, of what to value, and how it is tied to status, power, and perceived intelligence, as much as raw individual abilities, "cultural capital." In other words, knowing the secret rules of the game can help you win, even if you are not a naturally good player. Cultural capital along with social capital, the social connections that generate status and power (who you know, not what you know), dictate a lot of success in life. We could probably easily point to more than a few politicians with limited individual intelligence, but who know the rules and have the social connections that have taken them to the highest levels.

There are rules of the game that students need to learn. It does not mean that they are rules that work well for all games or that this particular game is better than other games. To speak directly to culture, no particular culture is better than another, necessarily, but in certain contexts, it is good to know the particular practices of the culture you are in. When in Rome, do as the Romans.

Some misinterpret this though. They take it to mean that a culture that is useful in a certain context is useful in all contexts. Basically, one culture is better than others. And those who believe this have taken this idea to a logical extreme. If one culture is best, then the other cultures are pretty useless. One notable person who made that argument is Richard Rodriguez in his memoir on his own education, “Hunger of Memory.” In that book Rodriguez argues that language minority children should discard their native tongues, or at best hide them, kept at home in private. This is the only place they are useful, communicating with the otherwise useless and ignorant ways of family.

This is point that I certainly don’t agree with, although I must admit at times that it seemed easier to just join the crowd and never look back. And the pull to give up one's own culture is strong in the United States. One must be conscientious about maintaing culture in the face of a school system that typically does not value diversity in its curriculum, in its staff, or in the way that it allocates resources. Being intentional about maintaining culture thus means going against the institutional tide, which is hard.

But, a recent article in Inside Higher Education notes that knowing the dominant culture relates to success in college. So, why would we not give that powerful knowledge to students? They may gain a lot. But, the fear is probably about what they might lose.

There is much to be lost in terms of family connections, traditions, wisdom and knowledge by giving up one culture for another. But there is a danger in reifying what we are familiar with as well. Coming from an immigrant family and having spoken with hundreds of children in immigrant families, especially Mexican, one of the most frequent admonitions I hear parents tell their children is “don’t be like me.” They say to aspire to something better, something different, something more. Isn’t that the nature of being an immigrant? To move? To change? And likewise, isn’t that the nature of education? To move beyond the past self. To die and be reborn anew.

Talent More Important than Looks? Not if You're Latina

“Naya Rivera Sizzles On Rolling Stone Flip Cover Featuring The Latin Hot List 2013” blared the headline on the Huffington Post’s "Latino Voices" section, followed by the lead “Naya Rivera is hot - if you had any doubts just check out the latest issue of Rolling Stone.”  Both the Rolling Stone cover story and the HuffPost’s coverage of it seem aimed at celebrating Rivera’s success borne from her singing talents.  Unfortunately, neither accomplishes this and it is bad for Hispanic and Latino women.


For those unfamiliar with her, Rivera is one of the many stars of the Fox network's dramedy/musical “Glee,” which centers on the lives of current and former members of a high school glee club.  Rivera portrays Santana, a former cheerleader, glee club member, mean girl starting her post-high school life in New York City with other former classmates.  Rivera’s success on “Glee” has enabled her to start the musical recording career that Rolling Stone seems to want to discuss.

Yet, the talent most on display that HuffPost celebrates is Rivera’s ability to dress scantily and pose provocatively, noting, “The 26-year-old strikes a seductive pose as the queen of Rolling Stone’s Latin Hot List…”

Image from Rolling Stone
available at
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/naya-rivera-leads-rolling-stones-latin-hot-list-2013-20131106

This is sad state of affairs for Hispanic and Latino female artists, one that does not seemed to have improved much during the past 30 to 40 years.  Linda Ronstadt, for example, famously has complained about her portrayal on the cover of Time magazine in 1977.  Ronstadt was the most famous and the highest paid woman in rock-and-roll during the 1970s, yet the Time cover seemed concerned only with the seductive image Ronstadt could project under the headline “Torchy Rock.”

Time, 28 February 1977
available at
http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19770228,00.html

That the music and magazine industries have done little to in the way of celebrating Hispanic and Latino female artists for their talents instead of their looks is shameful.  That these industry’s business structures compel women to think they need to use their looks to attract attention to their careers is equally so.  It has been over 30 years since Ronstadt's appearance on the cover of time.  Will it take still another 30 years before the conditions change?