Review of A Home on the Field by Paul Cuadros
What do frozen chicken and soccer have in common? More than you might suspect. The poultry processing plants which have sprung up across the south during the last twenty years have brought an influx of immigrants. These newcomers arrive from big cities and the US like Chicago, New York, and L.A. and from south of the border. The arrival of Mexicans, Salvadorans, Hondurans, and others to fill jobs in poultry plants has led to an economic resurgence in many rural towns. But the arrival of Latinos has been hard for many towns to accept. Many such rural communities of which have reached only an uneasy understanding between the majority white population and the black minority. Throwing a third group of people into the mix has been further complicated by the fact that the newest arrivals don’t play “American” sports but instead soccer.
Paul Cuadros’s book A Home on the Field documents the economic and sporting tensions seen since the beginning of what he calls the “Great Latino Migration†to rural areas. Cuadros went to North Carolina intending to study the impact of the growing Latino population on life in the southern United States. While there, his focus shifted as he became involved with the high school soccer team in rural Siler City. But even as his interest in soccer increased, he never lost his original focus. In the end, Cuadros performs a masterful feat by drawing the reader in with an engaging story of soccer success while at the same time showing them the complex lives of Latinos living in the rural south.
One of the first experiences Cuadros has upon arriving in Siler City, North Carolina is a KKK rally, complete with a David Duke speech. Many in the rural town are clearly not pleased with the recent influx of Latinos. This rally shows the degree of resentment many in the area have toward the new arrivals, and these negative feelings come through time and time again throughout the book. When Cuadros later attempts to organize a soccer team at the local high school, he is met with much resistance, undoubtedly fueled by anti-immigrant sentiment. Administrators in the school system offer him excuses that show both unwillingness to help their Latino students (they refuse to share the fields used for other sports) and their open mistrust of them (they claim that not enough students will have the grades to make them academically eligible). It is a miracle that the team gets off the ground at all.
The initial hostility to the team’s formation in Siler City is nothing, though, when compared with that shown by some opposing fans. At away games, the players are often showered with insults that leave little doubt the fans’ views on outsiders. Cuadros’s players often struggle to hold back tears and fists while being pelted with cries of “wetback.”
Over the next three years Cuadros’s team steadily improves, though not without growing pains, many of which are unique to the lives of the Latino students. The beginning of the second season is almost ruined when the team’s goalkeeper must return to Mexico to see his ailing grandmother. Not having legal residence in the US, he must return with the help of a coyote. He arrives just before the beginning of the season, having hiked through the desert for a week with only meager supplies of food and water. Clearly, these are not the concerns of most high school athletes.
When the team eventually wins the North Carolina state championship, it is nothing short of a miracle. Formed from scratch only three years earlier, the boys have become the best in the state despite incredible obstacles. The final whistle at the final game will be moving to any reader.
The sporting triumphs in A Home on the Field are reminiscent of the movie Hoosiers: a small-town team with an incredibly dedicated coach overcomes numerous obstacles to win a state title. The book does, in fact, read like a movie at times. Cuadros describes the games his team plays in with an incredible level of detail, making you feel like you’re sitting on the bench next to him. This is both a positive and negative. While the descriptions of the games will surely draw in readers brought to his book by the soccer angle, but I found them a bit long and drawn out. The games, while important in story development, distract from what the book is really about: the lives of Latinos in the rural south. Soccer is an important aspect of this, of course, but I would have preferred shorter descriptions of the team’s triumphs and more analysis of the larger issues which underlie Cuadros’s team.
That is not to say that the books lacks analysis of larger issues at play with regard to Latinos in the rural south. Cuadros has clearly done a wealth of research, which enables him to put the narratives of his team’s success into context. His ability to use soccer to bring out larger issues surrounding this newest Latino migration is the high point of his book.
In an era in which many try to demonize “illegal immigrants” under such demeaning monikers, Cuadros provides the stories of the Latino residents from their own perspectives. There is the mother who has brought her children from Chicago to Siler City to keep them away from gangs, the families who work hard to get by on meager salaries in the poultry processing plants, and their children who struggle to feel connected to the United States as well as their homelands. Cuadros does an excellent job of reminding us that immigrants are people, and have stories that ought to be heard.
Cuadros also points out the larger economic issues at play. The Latino migration to the rural south has been fueled primarily by economic factors. Most of the Latino residents of Siler City work in the town poultry processing plant. This is difficult, dirty, and low-paying work. Cuadros’s book dispels xenophobic claims that immigrants are taking American jobs: non-Latinos who have tried working in the plants have not lasted long. What’s more, the rise of poultry plants has led to an economic resurgence in a part of the North Carolina that had seen little hope since its textile factories realized they could not compete with products coming in from abroad. Some in Siler City may resent the arrival of Latinos, but their coming has boosted the lives of everyone in the town.
Even those outside of rural North Carolina are playing a part in the Latino migration there. Cuadros demonstrates the link between consumers who increasingly rely on the convenience of pre-processed chicken and the need for workers to do this work. If you cook boneless, skinless chicken breasts tonight, there is a good chance that a Latino immigrant processed it for you.
Paul Cuadros’s book A Home on the Field is a wonderful account of the lives of Latinos in the rural south. It focuses on a soccer team, but that is only the jumping-off point to discuss the many issues which surround this demographic shift in our country. Cuadros’s detailed research, insightful reporting, and clear writing make his book a must-read for soccer fans as well as those interested in immigration.
Further Information
Other Reviews
- Only a Game
- Matchnight
- Triangle Soccer Fanatics (also check out this podcast interview with Paul Caudros)
- News & Observer
