In his first book, Futbol In The Park, James Madison University sociologist David Trouille dispels some common myths about immigrants based on playing soccer with Latino men in public parks. David Trouille spoke with WMRA’s Chris Boros about how his research was spawned by an angry flier from neighbors who were not happy with the soccer games.
David Trouille: My professor brought in this flyer that he received in his neighborhood and it was kind of over-the-top language and frustration about a group of soccer players that were coming to the park and the feeling that they were being kind of attacked and invaded and that the city didn't care about them. I was intrigued by your community dynamics and I decided to go to the park to see what was happening and when I arrived I didn't see these angry neighbors, but I quickly became much more intrigued by the pickup soccer game and the socializing that surrounded it at the park
WMRA: And you eventually worked your way into this group and started playing soccer with these guys, right?
DT: Yeah. So I'm going to ethnographer which involves close-up participant observation as people go about their lives.
WMRA: When you thought about going into the group to join these guys, what was your reason for doing that as a researcher? Was it to learn about their culture and what they were all about or were you more interested in this dynamic between the men and these angry neighbors?
DT: Kind of all of the above. I saw it both as meaningful in its own right as a place to kind of build relationships, but I also thought it central to how immigrants kind of integrate and make a place for themselves in a new home. But I felt that soccer in particular was this rich space that hadn't really fully been interrogated in the literature.
WMRA: Did these guys know you were sort of researching them or did you keep that quiet?
DT: As an ethnographer as part of a university, you’re not really allowed to keep it quiet. But at first I wasn't exactly sure what I was doing. And so, you know, it was probably after a few months where I realized, you know what, this is what I want to study. I want to base my dissertation around that and at that point I went through what we refer to as the institutional review board of my university where I had to get informed consent from the men and I think like many researchers, sometimes they're a little put off by it. But at the other hand they quickly kind of forget especially because I was so involved in the scene. And if anything my research became more of a source for humor when they would ask me when I was going to finish this book or fun jokes about put that in your book or you better not right about that, so I think sometimes we may be overstate how concerned people are about the research.
WMRA: What do you think surprised you the most when you entered their world?
DT: I think the big one and what's good about this is that this is also what the local residents presumably were also kind of thinking is that by spending time with the men but also following them away from the park, I learned how the park actually became the most respectable and safest place to drink beer even though it was illegal and even though it was the cause of some problems because what I learned that most of these men lived in kind of crowded apartments, they didn't have a lot of space to socialize, bars were kind of dangerous or expensive or they didn't feel welcome there. And so the part actually for them was a respectable place to drink. And this was surprising and important because this is exactly not how the neighbors thought. They found it as disrespectful and not a reputable place to drink and they would often tell me this as we sat in their back, you know their spacious homes or backyards and sometimes drinking wine or something.
WMRA: So you ended up reaching out to those angry neighbors?
DT: Yeah. I spend a lot of time with the neighbors trying to understand their perspective in terms of their frustration with what was going on with the park. What I learned that a lot of it was about the social distance they had to this scene and in a lot of ways their unfounded fears about what was happening in the park. And this became really interesting because the neighborhood is kind of an upper-class primarily white neighborhood is full of Latinos but they're there as workers. So in that way as workers there were very much welcome in this neighborhood and others but when they kind of socialize as people, especially when they're playing soccer, this became a source of distress in a lot of ways and I think this is a central tension that this country has with immigration.
WMRA: If someone reads this new book of yours, what do you hope to learn from it or take away from learning about this research you did?
DT: To gain a deeper understanding of groups that we either kind of dismiss or that we overlooked specifically in the world of soccer and socializing in parks. Because I write about all sorts of different things is to see them as complex people in the same way that we see the other people in our lives and of course drawing special attention to the importance of soccer and socializing and public spaces.