Touchdown!

An accessible, lively, and concise study of Latino participation in the NFL that is part sports history, part cultural analysis, and part love letter to those who break through color lines.

The NFL doesn't want you to know: Latinos have been playing in the league since 1927. In Touchdown!, Frederick Luis Aldama and Christopher González tap interviews, archival research, and statistics to tell the story that generations of sports journalists have missed. They celebrate Cuban-born Lou Molinet's leather-helmet debut, Steve Van Buren's Hall of Fame rise, Tom Flores's Lombardi trophies, and Jim Plunkett threading impossible passes. And they address those convergences of race, class, and athletic opportunity--such as pay-to-play youth leagues, housing segregation, legal exclusions to early citizenship, and racist stereotypes pushing Latino players away from "thinking" positions--that keep brown players on the sidelines. Part sports history, part cultural analysis, and part love letter to the those who break through color lines, Touchdown! fills a critical gap in sports literature and Latino studies and makes clear what the scoreboard has tried to erase: La cultura has been on the field the whole time.