In the years after World War II, Germany faced a drastic labor shortage. The country lacked the manpower to rebuild the country whose destruction had been brought by Adolf Hitler. Germans came up with a solution to this problem and created a guest worker program, which would be pivotal in restoring the country to economic prosperity. The so-called gastarbeiter (German for “guest worker”) program began with 7,000 Turks arriving in 1961 and peaked in 1973, when 2.6 million Turish workers were living in Germany.

Turkish guest workers

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In 2005, just before his country’s World Cup qualifier against Japan, Lee Han Jae said, “To beat Japan and win a World Cup berth has been my dream.” What might at first appear simply to be a typical pre-game quote becomes more interesting when you know that Ri was born in Japan. How is it that a Japanese-born player would dream of one day beating the country of his birth?

Lee Han Jae

Lee is not a typical Japanese player. The Sanfrecce Hiroshima player was born in the Japanese city of Kurashiki, but his family comes from North Korea (thus making him eligible for that country’s national team). Lee is a member of the large, but often ignored, ethnic Korean minority group in Japan.

The Korean community exists largely because of Japan’s colonial past. In 1910, Japan annexed Korea, thus forcibly making its people Japanese subjects. For the next 35 years Japan occupied the Korean peninsula and brought many people to Japan as laborers. It was only in 1945 that Korea regained its independence, as Japan’s defeat in World War II led it to relinquish all overseas territories. But many of the ethnic Koreans living in Japan remained in that country and their descendants, like Lee Han Jae, make up the Korean community in Japan today.

Koreans in Japan have experienced widespread discrimination. Japanese identity has long been based on the idea of ethnic homogeneity, an idea challenged by minorities like the Koreans. For a long time, Korean immigrants’ children were denied citizenship, despite the fact that they were born in Japan.

The Korean community in Japan has itself experienced divisions. The war that split the peninsula into two countries soon after World War II also affected ethnic Koreans in Japan. While most came from South Korea, some hailed from the North. Those who supported North Korea formed the Chongryon organization to support the communist government’s ideals. This group continues to receive support from the North Korea government today. A large part of this money funds schools in Japan, which, not surprisingly, have a pro-North Korea bent.

Despite its mistrust of the North Korean regime, the Japanese government tolerates such schools because they are not officially accredited. As University of Iowa anthropologist Sonia Ryang writes in her article How to Do or Not Do Things with Words: The Case of Koreans in Japan, “In exchange for not being academic schools, Chongryun schools had carte blanche to teach about North Korea, Kim Il Sung and other political matters they themselves deemed to be important” (226).

Lee attended just such a school. And as he walked out onto the pitch in 2005 to play Japan, he was watched by 600 students and teachers from the Chrongryon-funded Tokyo Korean Junior and Senior High School. They were among the estimated 5,000 ethnic Koreans who turned out to see the game, which Japan won 2-1. Lee Han Jae is still waiting to fulfill his dream of beating the country of his birth.

A screenshot from Lee Han Jae’s official website shows him along with a Siberian Tiger, a symbol of Korea

Benny Feilhaber (left) playing for the USA U-20 national team

When American midfielder Benny Feilhaber signed for Hamburg in 2005, he returned to the part of the world his grandfather had left over half a century ago. But Feilhaber’s trip from UCLA to Germany was only the latest voyage in a life filled with twists and turns.Benny Feilhaber was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1985. His Jewish grandfather had fled to Brazil from his native Austria in order to escape the encroaching Nazi regime (though the Jewish population of Brazil is not as large as in Argentina, there are an estimated 100,000 Jews there today).Two generations later, young Benny grew up playing soccer in the streets of Brazil. He described the game there as “the most carefree soccer in the whole world. You kind of just play, do what you want with the ball and if you lose it and you just try and get it back.” Feilhaber played futebol in Brazil until, at age six, his family moved to the United States.

In Southern California, Feilhaber was a stand-out on local youth teams. He had a standout career at Northwood High School, but not enough to earn a scholarship to college soccer power UCLA. Feilhaber decided to try his luck as a walk-on at the Los Angeles school and earned a spot on the team. He experienced some success at UCLA, including being named to the Pac-10 second team, but his big break would come when he was named to the U-20 team for the 2005 World Championships.

Feilhaber’s inclusion on the U-20 team was a surprise because while he was successful at UCLA, he had never played for a youth national team. Good luck graced the player, as he told Andrea Canales of Soccer365:

I think the most surprising fact was how [then U-20 coach] Sigi (Schmid) heard about me to bring me in to the national team. His son attends UCLA and knows all the soccer guys. He told him I had been playing well and so Sigi decided to watch some games toward the end of my sophomore year.

Feilhaber’s play at the 2005 World Championships proved that his inclusion in the squad was deserved. He played so well that he was FIFA waxed poetic about his “silky skills and bags of creative energy” and named him to the all-tournament team, along with Leonel Messi, Philippe Senderos, and Jon Obi Mikel.

Feilhaber left such an impression at the tournament that he received offers from Mallorca, Heerenveen, and Kaiserlauten as well as Hamburg, with whom he eventually signed. The fact that Feilhaber had an Austrian passport smoothed his passage to Hamburg (with it, he wasn’t counted as a foreigner).

Feilhaber in his presentation for Hamburg

Feilhaber says he does see it as “a little bit ironic” that he now plays his soccer in the country which once forced his grandfather to flee his homeland (he is not the only Jew to return to Germany in recent years; see this Christian Science Monitor article about a “Jewish renaissance” in the country). And he says that most people in Germany “don’t [realize] I [am] Jewish, but if they asked I would be first to tell them.” Feilhaber identifies as Jew enough that he traveled to Israel with the American soccer team to take part in the 2005 Maccabiah Games. Doing so postponed his joining up with Hamburg, but Feilhaber says he doesn’t regret the decision. While there, he led the US team to a silver medal along with Chivas USA’s Jonathan Bornstein. (Bornstein, child of a Jewish father and Mexican mother described the tournament thusly: “Outside of my UCLA teammate Benny Feilhaber, I never really thought there were other high-class Jewish soccer players out there. With the Maccabiah Games, I definitely got the chance to experience a good thing. I realized there are a lot of really cool and really good Jewish athletes.”)

While Feilhaber began his Hamburg career with the reserves, this year he has seen extensive time with the first team. Playing along with world-class players such as Juan Pablo Sorí­n (also a Jew) and Rafael Van der Vaart (married to Dutch MTV presenter Sylvie Meis, who is Jewish) has improved Feilhaber’s play enormously.

Bob Bradley brought Feilhaber into the US squad this past week and gave him his first start in Sunday’s 3-1 victory over Ecuador. Feilhaber’s technique, passing, tackling, and stabilizing play were lauded by many. Said Landon Donovan (whose man of the match performance was due in no small part to the dirty work Feilhaber put in behind him), “He’s very good on the ball, and has as much potential at that position as anyone I’ve seen. He’s in a spot where he could find himself playing there for a long time for the US.”

One problem Feilhaber has is figuring out where “that position” is. While Feilhaber has played mostly as a defensive midfielder in recent years, he is far more skilled and creative than a typical “destroyer” in the mold of Claude Makelele. Some, like Paul Gardner, worry that Feilhaber’s “talent [may] wither away in the restricted world of the holding midfielder.”

But this view ignores the fact that a defensive midfielder need not only be a destroyer. In fact, Feilhaber resembles Italy’s deep-lying distributor Andrea Pirlo, a comparison both Feilhaber himself and Marc Connolly have made. Indeed, the US national team may have to reshape its tactics to match Feilhaber’s talents. (In this they could take a cue from the Argentines, who love a “number 5″ described by Marcela Mora y Araujo as “both marker and playmaker” who often pushes into an inside forward position too).

Feilhaber battles against Arsenal’s Julio Baptista in a 2006 Champions League match

Feilhaber’s unique skill set may stem, at least in part, from his eclectic upbringing. Landon Donovan says he has a “German bite” and Feilhaber agrees, saying he has “learned to be an aggressive ballwinner” in his time at Hamburg. But underneath he still retains some of what he learned on the streets of Brazil. The six years he spent in South America were important in teaching him “to keep the ball for my team and not to give it away easily.” Putting together this strength and technique has been key to his success. “Once I was able to use both these qualities in my soccer, it helped me become a much better player.”

Benny Feilhaber’s life has taken him to many continents, but he has never forgotten the country of his birth. He still speaks Portuguese, drinks matte (a Brazilian tea) every day, and told the website Even Is On that Brazilian music prominently placed on his iPod. And despite the success Feilhaber has achieved, he says that his dream is to play for the Brazilian club he supports, Botafogo.

Feilhaber is truly a man of the world. He makes a living in a country far from home, but claims the distance doesn’t bother him. “I’ve been really exposed to many different lifestyles so [playing in Germany] is definitely a new experience for me but nothing has been too unusual that I haven’t seen before.”

Although many stadiums in recent years are being outside of urban centers, many clubs continue to have home grounds based in the neighborhoods where they were originally founded. The connection between club and neighborhood is often strong, and nowhere more so than in the Buenos Aires neighborhood that is home to Boca Juniors.

La Boca is literally and figuratively an extremely colorful neighborhood. Much of its character comes from the brightly painted buildings, especially those along the famous Caminito street. The bright colors of these buildings hide their shoddy construction. Quantity of housing was more important than quality, as these sheet metal structures were built to house the masses of Italian immigrants who came to populate La Boca in the 19th century.

The local color (literally) of La Boca

These Italian immigrants came largely from the city of Genoa and La Boca took on a Genoese identity. The name La Boca was in fact a shortening of the Bocadaze neighborhood in Genoa from which many of the immigrants came. When La Boca briefly seceded from Argentina in 1882, the residents raised the flag of Genoa (which, ironically, is identical to England’s St. George’s Cross).

Flag of Genoa / La Boca / England

La Boca has long been is seen as the cultural center of Buenos Aires. Many tourists visit La Boca to see tango performances (the dance was invented in this neighborhood) as well as the many artists who call it home.

A street performance of tango in La Boca

Not all is pretty in La Boca, however. It has long been host to the city’s meatpacking industry and the putrid smell that long characterized it came from industrial waste dumped into the Riachuelo River.

The polluted Riachuelo River, part of La Boca’s “charm”

Though it has been cleaned up recently, La Boca remains a largely working-class identity. As Lonely Planet puts it, “La Boca can be very rough in spots, so it’s best not to stray from the riverside walk or the tourist sections” (130).

The La Boca locals whom Lonely Planet advises its readers to keep away from are almost undoubtedly Boca Juniors fans. The club was founded in 1905 by five Italian immigrants in La Boca and has remained there ever since (further evidence of the Genoese influence: Boca Juniors fans are often referred to as xeneizes, which means Genoese in the Italian dialect of that city). Just as the neighborhood has historically been and remains to this day largely working-class, the Boca Juniors’ support is seen as coming from modest means (fans of their wealthier rivals, River Plate refer to Boca fans as bosteros, or manure handlers).

One of the most iconic symbols of Boca Juniors is its stadium, La Bombonera. Located in the middle of La Boca, the area that surrounds the stadium is colorful, but with a strong emphasis on blue and yellow, Boca Juniors’ colors. Many buildings surrounding the stadium are painted in homage to the local team.

A building that leaves no doubts about the allegencies of its inhabitants

La Bombonera is one of the most impressive stadiums in the world. Its name (bombonera means chocolate box) comes from its rectangular shape, though its most distinctive feature may be the nearly vertical stand that houses luxury boxes (Diego Maradona often shows up here and his passion nearly leads to him falling over the edge of his luxury box to an inglorious end). The atmosphere in the stadium is raucous to say the least, and Boca’s fans (La Doce or the 12th man) are known around the world for their passion.

There are few teams with as strong a connection to their local neighborhood as that between Boca Juniors and La Boca. As many clubs move, literally and figuratively, from their local communities, it is worth celebrating those that have not done so. Over a century after being founded there, Boca Juniors remains tied to the colorful neighborhood of La Boca.

Edoardo Isella has only ever played once for the Mexican national team. His 45 minutes in a friendly against Bolivia in 2000 were unremarkable. Isella told Guadalajara’s Mural newspaper after the game, “I didn’t play as well as I would have liked to.”

But Isella’s debut was remarkable in another way. The cap he earned in 2000 made him the first Afro-Mexican player (that I have found after extensive research) to represent El Tricolor.

The next year, another Afro-Mexican, Melvin Brown, nicknamed Melvin de los Choko Krispis or “Melvin of the Cocoa Crispies” would make his debut for Mexico. Brown’s national team career lasted longer than Isella’s, culminating in him making the 2002 World Cup team (though he never played).

Both Isella and Brown currently play for Jaguares, a Chiapas-based team in the Mexican Primera. They have fallen out of favor with regard to the national team and play their football in relative obscurity.

Isella (L) and Brown (R)

Their obscurity reflects the status of Afro-Mexicans in general. Though many have lived there for centuries, many Mexicans, not to mention outsiders, are unaware of this segment of their population.

The first Afro-Mexicans are believed to have been brought to the country in the 16th by the Spanish conquistadors. The black population in Mexico grew quickly as Spaniards continued to import slaves, going from 20,000 in 1570 to 35,000 by 1646, according to anthropologist Bobby Vaughan. In total, it is believed that 200,000 or more slaves may have been brought to Mexico before slavery was abolished in 1821.

The current Afro-Mexican population is made up of the descendants of former slaves, many of whom intermarried with native Mexicans. The Afro-Mexican population has also been augmented by several waves of migration.

A group of runaway slaves in the United States had married Seminole Indians and formed their own communities. In the middle of the 19th century, these so-called “maroons,” under threat from Native American groups and the American army, escaped to Mexico and became part of the Afro-Mexican population.

John Horse (aka Juan Caballo), leader of Black Seminole group that went to Mexico in 1849

Blacks continue to come to Mexico today. Many are economic migrants, members of black populations in countries, coming to relatively prosperous Mexico to improve their lives. Both Edoardo Isella and Melvin Brown fall into this category (Isella’s father is from Honduras while Brown’s grandparents are Jamaican).Most Afro-Mexicans today live in coastal states of Southern Mexico, largely isolated from the rest of the country. Many Mexicans are unaware of their existence simply because they have never met or seen an Afro-Mexican.

The status of Afro-Mexicans, therefore, is hard to define. Bobby Vaughan told the Guardian in 2005, “This is the one community that is not recognised nationally. Indigenous groups are worse off in many ways, but at least they are paid lip service. Mexicans of African descent have no voice and the government makes no attempt to assess their needs, no effort to even count them.”

Afro-Mexicans in the Costa Chica region

Soccer players like Edoardo Isella and Melvin Brown have made Mexicans more aware of the Afro-Mexican community. They have also forced Mexicans to confront their attitudes toward this minority group.

Isella rose to prominence while at Chivas, a team known for fielding only Mexican players. Writing in the newspaper Reforma on October 12, 2000, Sergio Patiño said Isella had received “constant criticism from Chivas purists, for being a foreigner and for having dark skin” (translation my own).

Controversy over Afro-Mexicans arose most prominently in 2005 when the Mexican Postal Service issued stamps commemorating the cartoon character Memí­n Pinguin. Memí­n, an Afro-Mexican comic book character around since the 1940s, was seen by some as racist. They cited a story line in which Memí­n was told that as a black he could not go to heaven. Jesse Jackson called for then-President Vicente Fox to take the stamp off the market.

Many in Mexico did not understand these criticisms. Some cited another issue in which Memí­n traveled to Texas and was refused service because of his race.

Covers of Memín Pinguín

Historian Enrique Krauze represented the Mexican perspective in his 2005 opinion piece in the Washington Post called “The Pride in Memin Pinguin.”

To Americans, the figure, with his exaggerated “African” features, appears to be a copy of racist American cartoons. To Mexicans, he is a thoroughly likable character, rich in sparkling wisecracks, and is felt to represent not any sense of racial discrimination but rather the egalitarian possibility that all groups can live together in peace. During the 1970s and ’80s, his historietas sold over a million and a half copies because they touched an authentic chord of sympathy and tenderness among poorer people, who identified with Memin Pinguin.

The nature of race relations may not be entirely clear right now, but the Afro-Mexican population is likely to be discussed more in the future. That is because the great hope of Mexican soccer is Giovanni Dos Santos, the son of a black Brazilian father and Mexican mother. Dos Santos is considered a phenomenal talent with the potential to become one of the best players in the world. He led Mexico to the U-17 World Championship in 2005 and was snapped up by Barcelona, where the 18 year-old is currently on the cusp of breaking into the first team.

Giovanni Dos Santos (top row, 6th from L) as a kid, along with his father (in yellow shirt)

If Dos Santos lives up to his potential, the country will have its most visible Afro-Mexican ever. It will be interesting to see how Dos Santos affects Mexican attitudes about their black population. If nothing else, having a prominent Afro-Mexican player will bring awareness to a community long ignored.

Giovanni Dos Santos, the Afro-Mexican future of El Tricolor

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Fans often attempt to show their dedication to their club by claiming that it is truly a part of who they are. In most cases, this is simple cliché. But not with the fans of Swedish club Assyriska. Many of these supporters are members of Assyrian diaspora living around the world. Assyriska has come to represent them, as a national team for minority group with no nation.

Assyriska fans hold up a giant Assyrian flag in support of their team

Assyriska was founded in 1974 by Assyrian immigrants to Sweden. Most of the founding members worked at a local truck factory who formed the club to play soccer in their free time. From those modest beginnings, the club slowly rose through the ranks of Swedish soccer.

In 2003, they made it to the Swedish Cup final, losing to established power Elfsborg. One year later, the team of founded by Assyrian immigrant factory workers won promotion to the Swedish Premier Division. The reaction was pure jubilation. The club marketing director Robil Haidari said, “At that moment we just felt such enormous joy, I figured everybody in the world is Assyrian now, even God is Assyrian, or at least a supporter.”

Assyrian residents of the town of Södertälje, the Swedish town where Assyriska are from, were similarly overwhelmed. Local resident Abraham Staifo attempted to explain his emotions:

It encouraged the young ones to feel pride in being what they are, and brought tears to the eyes of the elderly. It was so much more than just football. The Assyrian people have few opportunities to express themselves. We felt our hearts would shoot out from our chests. That is why the elderly cried.

Reaching these dizzying heights brought recognition to the team, not least among the estimated 2 million Assyrians living around the world. Club president Zeiki Bisso told FIFA’s website, “For all of us who were oppressed in our home countries for many years … this felt superb, it was something every Assyrian wanted to take pride in.”

Indeed, at times it seemed like nearly every Assyrian did take pride in the club’s success. Its matches were broadcast in 83 countries and the diaspora spoke about the team in glowing terms. Assyriska team scarves began to appear far from Sweden, including by Nick Dinkha, a Toronto resident.

The pride fans around the world expressed in Assyriska has everything to do with the often sad history of the Assyrian people. The Assyrians are indigenous to current-day Iraq and have lived there for thousands of years. They were one of the first groups to convert to Christianity. Even as many around them in the Middle East later converted to Islam, Assyrians continued to practice their religion.

Assyrians’ historical relationship with their neighbors is fraught with flare-ups of violence. Assyrians have been the subject of campaigns of oppression that has risen to the level of mass murder on several occasions. In 2003, political analyst Jonathan Eric Lewis wrote in Middle East Quarterly that of the events of 1915 when up to two-thirds of the Assyrian community of southeastern Turkey and northern Iran was physically decimated in a matter of months. Lewis also documents a 1933 event in which nearly 3000 people were killed by Iraqi and Kurdish fighters, the anniversary of which is a national day of mourning for Assyrians around the world.

Ottoman soldiers stand over the bodies of murdered Assyrians

In Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, things were not much better. Speaking the Assyrian language and advocating Assyrian nationalism were both criminalized. Many left the country and this exodus has accelerated since the US overthrew Hussein in 2003. The violence in Iraq is often described as a battle between Sunnis and Shiites, but Iraqi Christians have been intimidated and murdered across the country. When prominent Iraqi Assyrian leader Isaac Esho Alhelani was murdered earlier this month, he joined the ranks of many Christians targeted for their beliefs or their perceived wealth. Assyrians account for only three to five percent of the Iraqi population, but have accounted for roughly 40 percent of that country’s refugees.

Those leaving Iraq today are going to countries with established Assyrian populations. The United States has around 83,000 Assyrians, Jordan 77,000, and Sweden is third among diaspora countries with 35,000 Assyrians. Despite the growing numbers of Assyrians living around the world, many wish for their own country.

It is into this statelessness that a small Swedish soccer club founded by Assyrian immigrants entered. entered. Many claim Assyriska’s popularity is due to it being seen as a pseudo-national team. Club president Zeki Bisso says that “Assyriska feels like a national team for the entire [Assyrian] group.”

Assyriska has since been relegated back to the second division in Sweden. Its importance, however, has not been diminished. For the Assyrian population around the world, Assyriska is not just a soccer team; it is the most visible expression of national pride for an oppressed people without a nation.

Assyriska players celebrate after a goal

Further Information

A movie about Assyriska called A Team Without a Nation was made in 2006. I have not seen it, but would love to hear about it if anyone has.