Focusing on the theme of “Sports and Leisure,” the most recent issue of The American Historian is now available. The issue features three essays on the history of sports and leisure. In “Field of Sueños: Baseball and the (Mexican) American Dream,” Alex Nuñez explores the early history of Mexican Americans in Major League Baseball to show how Mexican Americans experienced the fluidity of race in America, as some Mexican Americans were deemed “exceptional” and able to play in the all-white league. Andrew Kharl in “Race and Recreation in Twentieth Century America” writes on how African Americans in the twentieth century continuously fought for the right to access outdoor spaces of sports and leisure. In the third featured article, “Disney Parks in Times of Crisis,” Bethanee Bemis shows how minority groups, primarily the LGBTQ+ community, influenced Disneyland theme parks to become more inclusive.
The Sports and Leisure issue of TAH also contains an article on the importance of including foreign language sources in U.S. history, an essay on how to teach LGBTQ+ history in a K-12 classroom, and the president’s column by OAH President Anthea Hartig.
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