Through considering Latinos in baseball, how can we see changes in the color line and what does this teach us about race? Be sure to use the ideas of power and racialization to explain your answer.
While baseball’s color line is often portrayed in a black/white binary, Latino players proved there was a distinct gray (or in their case – brown) area. Latinos pushed the boundaries of the color line, but in doing so, became highly racialized figures. They were marketed as curiosities and were categorized not only racially, but also phenotypically and ethnically. Latino and African Americans experienced solidarity – especially in organically diverse communities such as Harlem – but lighter-skinned, Spanish-bred Latinos were positioned as distinctly non-black. The Latino baseball experience proves that discrimination and racialization are more than just black and white, cut and dry issue, and their presence in the game not only helped break the color line, but is still felt today.
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