No Latina girls play sports?
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Anonymous
| I teach native Spanish speakers and they live in a low income community. The girls will sometimes play soccer because the rec center is right in the neighborhood. I've shown them photos of my kids who fence and play tennis. Their families mostly do not have cars and there are no tennis courts within walking distance. They are limited to what's right in the neighborhood. Maybe once they get into high school, there will be a few more options but in their case, soccer and baseball (boys only) is what is available to them. If I didn't have a car or the money, my kids wouldn't play any sports. |
Anonymous
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It is cultural and yes, SES plays into it.
I'm poor white and I'm driving my kid nowhere far and sit there for hour or 3. I have to be at work at 3 pm today and so do my co-workers who are Latinos and Latinas. I said it's cultural mostly, because for example Honduras and Salvador have no Olympic medals. My country of little of 2 million people have nearly as many as big Mexico. It's just not their thing. Their thing might be looking cute and competing in Miss Universe. |
Anonymous
| 3 of the girls on our 8-person soccer team are Hispanic. 1-2 receive financial aid provided by the league. This is a cheap Rec league, though- the travel teams seem to be mostly white kids because in Arlington, there are more white families willing and able to shell out $2500/year for one kid to play soccer. |
Anonymous
| DH is from Central America, and his sister played basketball. The family was education oriented and tried to get the kids to get scholarships. SIL received a full ride, between athletic money and need based scholarship to Tulane. She turned it down to stay home with her high school boyfriend and was pregnant by 19. |
Anonymous
| This is stupid Latina here grew up in Texas I have family in California also. I've played sports since Jr. High through college granted it was for for. Should I mention my high school was 80% Hispanic and omg Hispanics/Latinas were playing sports. Geez, people get out of your bubble we do play sports, shocking isn't it. Oh I should mention my high school was made up of middle class students omg!! |
Anonymous
Fun* |
Anonymous
Are you have success with ANY non-rich-white-blonde-ponytailed-cliquey girls? |
Anonymous
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It's not cultural; it's about SES. I'm a first-generation Latina; my parents are both immigrants, who came to the US for boarding school and college. Both parents were terrific swimmers, and my dad played and coached soccer, but my mom was actually a much better athlete. She played tennis and basketball in high school. My sisters and I all played varsity sports in high school. All of my female cousins also played sports.
OP, I think it's terrific that your organization is trying to recruit Latina girls to play sports. If you're having trouble, the best advice I've seen here is to connect with middle and high school coaches. I'd also suggest that you think about financial aid and how to make practice locations and schedules accessible to parents who are both working FT with little flexibility in their work schedules. My DD plays club lacrosse, and what we've seen is that getting kids to practice becomes a major challenge for many families of modest income. |
Anonymous
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I'm above PP -- just saw that you're recruiting for softball. Two words: Jessica Mendoza -- http://www.jmendoza.com/
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Anonymous
Agreed somewhat because SES and culture go together. Our Dd is Latina and she is adopted. The other Latina girls we see on her sports teams are also adopted. She plays softball and there is one other Latina girl whose parents are higher SES and the dad commented that he played softball in his home country and that softball was for boys and he was surprised to see a girls team so perhaps that has something to do with it? If you really want to attract more Latina girls, be realistic. In this area, the majority of Latina girls are going to be living in low income families so do something to reach out to those families. A good bet - set up a program such that practices occur right after school during aftercare and parents do not need to take the kids to practice, provide as much equipment as possible to reduce out of pocket costs and when you can not do that, go to the store and actually buy the cheapest option of the item for the players and ask their parents to reimburse you only the cost of the item to reduce the expense of time and money to go to the store to buy other items, have games after school or have weekend/evening games, send team info out via text and send it in both English and Spanish, don't do email. Make the cost of the activity cheap - cheap enough to where they do not need to fill out a financial aid form. If you truly want to get more latina girls |
Anonymous
| I went to a school with a high hispanic population. Dance team was very popular with the hispanic girls. It's just as athletic as any sport team and was very popular. They performed before soccer and football games. |
Anonymous
OP here. Yes. Why the hostility? Are you having a bad day? Are you normally a rude person? |
Anonymous
| I'm not hispanic, but I bet this is part of your problem. Girls often don't know how to hit a baseball. No one ever taught me. By the time elementary teams were begging to join, I was so far behind the other boys and girls that knew. It was embarrassing. My parents weren't sporty and didn't teach me. |
Anonymous
Stop with the racism. Jesus. |
Anonymous
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My husband is an immigrant but he is from South America and I am white. His sisters weren't really into sports. They both played soccer at one point. Our daughter plays soccer. She is only 7 years old so there isn't many sports from which to choose. She has taken swimming lessons. I think sometimes girls don't want to play sports. She goes to a predominately white school so her environment/experience is probably not what you are looking for.
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