These two articles that were read were two very different articles, but also had a few similarities to them. I read “C’mon, You Reds” and “Sport and the Americanisation of Puerto Rico”. These two articles, while both discussing how history and different events led to the success or downfall of sports, had many differences regarding the outcomes of each. For example, “C’mon, You Reds” was a fascinating article about how the Great Depression impacted the sports of America. One quote that was fascinating to me was when then author was describing how athletes were to be seen as the thought of War was being brought up and the Depression was at its peak when the author said, “it emphasized that sports should be used as a medium for class struggle and even create “proletarian fighting units against militarism and fascism.” Next, athletes should infiltrate, take over, and split off the company sports’ teams.” This quote, is the complete opposite to what “Sport and the Americanisation of Puerto Rico” had to say about athletes, saying how Puerto Rico was blessed to see the invention and analyzation of sport become a reality, while America was talking about how these athletes needed to be battle ready. Another difference between the two articles refers to the time periods. This was already mentioned above, but even though both of these articles are giving context to the early 1920’s and early 1940’s, the way that these societies are flourishing are on the opposite ends of the spectrum. One, the Puerto Ricans, similar to the article we read last week about the invention of sport in Brazil, is flourishing and beginning to establish lots of new sports leads and teams in which they can build their society off of, on the other hand, the Americans are struggling to find referees for their games, to which they have to ref for free due to the extreme and utter money shortage due to the depression.
Building off the point of the depression, while America was losing money and not able to afford basic things for their sporting events, Puerto Rico was just beginning to be on the rise. A quote that supports this is in “Sport… Puerto Rico” when the author says, “By 1926, 109 school athletic associations had been organized” and “By 1914 the YMCA had opened a building in San Juan and created opportunities for basketball, volleyball and tennis. In 1916 110 boys and young men participated in the Y’s first track meet”. These two quotes are major implications of the success that Puerto Rico was having with the recent developments of the YMCA, YWCA, and all of the new sports that were being implemented such as swimming and volleyball. Both of these articles touched on a lot of different aspects of sport in both American and Puerto Rico, but I truly believe that these articles, although having some similar aspects to them, were completely different regarding the financial and societal issues and successes going on in each of them.
