Nuestro Legado/Our Legacy Series: Mexican American Fast Pitch Softball

Saturday, May 17

Nuestro Legado/Our Legacy Series: Mexican American Fast Pitch Softball: Connecting Communities Across the Midwest, Featuring Dr. Ben Chappell

10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

JE Dunn Construction Theater

Admission is Pay What You Like

Dr. Ben Chappell will discuss the evolution of fastpitch softball in Mexican immigrant and Mexican American communities in the Midwest. In Mexican American communities in the central U.S., the tradition of playing fastpitch softball has been passed from generation to generation. This ethnic sporting practice is kept alive through annual tournaments, including a tournament in Newton that will celebrate its 77th year in 2025.

Carrying on with fastpitch into the second or third generation of players even as wider interest in the sport has waned, these historically Mexican American tournaments now function as reunions that allow people to maintain ties to a shared past, and to remember the decades of segregation when Mexican Americans' citizenship was unfairly questioned.

Recognizing fastpitch as a practice of cultural citizenship, Dr. Chappell situates the sport within a history marked by migration, marginalization, solidarity, and struggle, through which Mexican Americans have navigated complex negotiations of cultural, national, and local identities.

The short film produced by Gene T. Chavez, Ed.D. entitled Mexican American Fast Pitch Softball: Connecting Communities Across State Lines will be shown after Dr. Chappell’s presentation.

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