The Boys from Little Mexico

For nineteen straight years, the all-Hispanic boys’ soccer team from Oregon’s Woodburn High has made the playoffs. As they prepare to make it twenty, one thing will become clear: Los Perros play the beautiful game with heart, pride, and their lives on the line. Their spirited drive gives a rare sense of hope and unity to a blue-collar farming community that has been transformed by waves of immigrants over recent decades, a town locals call “Little Mexico.” Watched over by a south Texas transplant—a surrogate father to half the squad—this band of brothers must learn to come together on the field and look after each other off it.
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More than just riveting sports writing, The Boys from Little Mexico is about the fight for the future of the next generation—and a hard, true look at boys dismissed as gang-bangers, told to “go home” by lily-white sideline crowds. The wins and losses they notch along the way spin a striking tale about what it takes to capture the American Dream.
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Steve Wilson is the former publisher and editor of Motionsickness: The Other Side of Travel, a critically lauded magazine that was selected as a finalist for Utne's Best New Titles for 2001. He has also been published widely in newspapers and magazines, including the Portland Tribune, American History, and Utne. A graduate of Portland State University's MA Writing Program, he teaches at PSU.


From the Hardcover edition.