Sociology Theses and Dissertations

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“Surfing? That’s a White Boy Sport”: An Intersectional Analysis of Mexican Americans’ Experiences with Southern California Surf Culture
(University of Oregon, 2019-04-30) Comley, Cassie; Vasquez-Tokos, Jessica
The primary purpose of this ethnographic study is to contextualize Mexican American surfers experiences with sport as a lens into race, gender and class relations. Specifically, it seeks to understand how a history of gender, race, and class oppression has played out in this understudied terrain of sports. This study offers empirical insight into the ways in which Mexican Americans navigate and (un)successfully infiltrate predominantly white, male, middle-class sporting arenas. In this study I also examine the relationship between access and barriers, specifically how access to public recreational spaces are constricted by participants’ real and imagined barriers. By exploring Mexican American surfers’ everyday experiences, I unearthed the varying ways Mexican American surfers experienced discrimination and marginalization across intersecting and interlocking identities.