Home Is Everything: The Latino Baseball Story (review)

Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 315 recognize that she employs many of the same narrative techniques he attempts to study in similar ways and widi a possible similar effect. I am thinking in particular of Ferrés story "La muñeca menor" a story where she uses unsettling narrative techniques to launch a feminist critique of society. This one example points to rhe problem of overgeneralizations and long lists of names in any critical work. Another problem is that he consistently mentions the magkorealor magical real as relating to the Amerindian culture. This formulation is fine and partially accurate, however it ignores rhe very real importance that African cultures in Latin America had on its formulation. Carpentier is writing about African cultures and their presence in the Caribbean. Márquez also comes from the Caribbean portion of Colombia, and is, dierefore, influenced by and responds to African cultures in Latin American more than, or at least as much as, he does Amerindian cultures. Also the statement that "Both Asturias and Carpentier, we discover, were extremely invested in promoting the idea of magical realist consciousness in the Americas" (10) points to an overall lack of knowledge of the complexities of these problems and their articulation in Latin America especially as they relate to Carpentier. Though these problems are largely overshadowed by an interesting argument they may cause an already unsympathetic or knowledgeable reader to, at best, stop reading. Aldama seems on the verge of providing something new to an already exhausted, worn out, dead discussion . His idea of studying reader/viewer response for example is interesting, as is his use of the picaro figure which I didn'r have time to go into here, but it is largely a study that lacks supporting scholarship or a clearly articulated theoretical framework that would allow future critiques to reproduce die general effect he is claiming. JohnWaldron University ofVermont Home Is Everything: The Latino Baseball Story Cinco Puntos Press, 2002 By José Luis Villegas and Marcos Bretón The doubk-entendre of this photo essay's tide refers to the dual obsessions of die Latin American baseball player trying to make it to the Major Leagues in the United States. "Home" of course refers to the principal objective of baseball itself, to score a run by rounding the bases and making it to home plate, and also to the countries that shape the players' identities during their youth and even during the careers of those talented and lucky enough to be successful in the United States. Sportswriter Bretón mixes narration of individual players' struggles to reach the major leagues with commentary on the history of Latin American baseball players in the U.S., a history that has involved prejudice, a language barrier and double srandards applied to minority ballplayers as well as dazzling success stories for a select few. Breton's text is set against the impressive collection of colorful and candid photos of Latin American baseball players rhat photographer Villegas has compiled over the last ten years during his travels to the Caribbean and around the major and minor leagues. The book begins with a heartfelt preface by the great Puerto Rican outfielder and first baseman Orlando Cepeda, whose seventeen-year career from 1958-1974 ranks among the greatest any Latin American player has had. Cepeda himself is a symbol of the hardships that Latin American ballplayers, especially those from the Caribbean , have faced. His father, a talented ballplayer in his own right, was not allowed to play in the major leagues because he was black, inspiring Cepeda to forge the career his father could not. The first two of the book's five chapters weave sketches of life in the Dominican Republic with stories of individual players' dreams of earning a contraer from an American team. The photos alternate between life on and around the playing field, where players literally wear their dreams on their sleeves in the form of American baseball uniforms, and images of home and neighborhood life, where extreme poverty is often the norm. The following three chapters depict life in the United States for btino players trying to make it to the major leagues, ending by...