'It’s only working for the white kids': American soccer's diversity problem

Discussion in 'Soccer in the USA' started by LouisianaViking07/09, Jun 4, 2016.

  1. Elninho

    Elninho Member+

    Sacramento Republic FC
    United States
    Oct 30, 2000
    Sacramento, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Mostly because there aren't a lot of Asian-Americans. 4.5% of the population right now. Asian-Americans have been represented at population level in MLS for most of its history.

    As for the Olympic team, they're disproportionately in sports that are popular in Asia; I know a lot of Asian-American parents discourage their kids from participating in team sports and push them into individual sports. The 2012 and 2016 Olympic teams have had unusually few Asian-Americans, actually. There have historically been quite a few Asian-American swimmers and gymnasts, substantially above the number you'd expect from the population.

    Of the table tennis and badminton players we've sent to the Olympic games since 2008, all but one have been Asian-American.
     
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  2. LouisianaViking07/09

    Aug 15, 2009
    Michelle Kwan comes to mind. Also Kristi Yamaguchi.
     
  3. miketd1

    miketd1 Member

    Jun 14, 2007
    Asian families push academics. Hard. Extra curriculars are viewed as "nice to have" for college apps.

    The minute academics start to slip, sports are the first to be blamed and subsequently deemphasized.
     
  4. Elninho

    Elninho Member+

    Sacramento Republic FC
    United States
    Oct 30, 2000
    Sacramento, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #179 Elninho, Aug 12, 2016
    Last edited: Aug 12, 2016
    I'm Taiwanese-American. I played D3 college soccer, though my parents tried to get me to quit as soon as they knew I was going to a D3 school without any possibility of a soccer scholarship. (I also wasn't a starter on a D3 team, so I definitely had no chance of getting a D1 scholarship anyway.)

    But even among those who love sports, individual sports are strongly preferred over team sports, and I think that's the even bigger dynamic at play. My parents wanted me to focus on swimming rather than soccer, because the way they saw it, it was too team-oriented without enough opportunity to stand out individually. (And I was a center forward, the position that gets more individual glory than any other. They didn't think it was enough.) As much as Asian cultures are stereotyped as collectivist, Asians are incredibly individualistic when it comes to sports. The main reason baseball is such a popular sport in East Asia is that it is largely a series of individual duels between pitcher and batter. This is well documented as the reason baseball took off in Japan during the Meiji Restoration.
     
  5. miketd1

    miketd1 Member

    Jun 14, 2007
    I think there's definitely some truth to that. It would also explain why so many Asians play instruments growing up.

    But sports-wise, a bunch participated in basketball and soccer where I grew up so my anecdotal experience has been a bit different from yours. I grew up in the 90s in NJ, so I'm not sure if my experience is reflective of American society as a whole.
     
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  6. Elninho

    Elninho Member+

    Sacramento Republic FC
    United States
    Oct 30, 2000
    Sacramento, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I was in high school in the 90s in the Houston area. (I can't say anything about earlier, because I was in Dubai before that.) My high school was a little under 10% Asian-American. My senior year, I was one of only four Asians in the school who competed in a team sport, but the tennis team, the swim team, and the golf team (that's all the individual sports that the school competed in except track and field!) were all majority-Asian. Even the track team had more Asians than all the team sports combined.

    I also play viola semi-professionally to this day, and played low brass through high school, and I saw exactly the same thing going on in music: Asians tended to be incredibly individualistic there as well. That's why so many play the instruments most commonly seen as solo instruments (piano and violin), and so few play any other instrument. At one point, I looked at the list of musicians in a concert program for my college orchestra, and found that 24 of the 28 violinists were Asian, as compared to 4 out of 47 other musicians.
     
  7. Timbuck

    Timbuck Member

    Jul 31, 2012
    Is there an article written by musicians titled "It's only working for the Asia kids: Americas piano and violin diversity problem"
     
  8. tyguy

    tyguy Member

    Apr 11, 2006
    Cheeseland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    [QUOTE="Elninho, post: 34446266, member: 11619" The 2012 and 2016 Olympic teams have had unusually few Asian-Americans, actually. There have historically been quite a few Asian-American swimmers and gymnasts....[/QUOTE]

    I was watching female rifle shooting. It was a Korean vs a Russian. The Russian gal looked Asia-American.
     
  9. Cubanlix63

    Cubanlix63 Member+

    AFC Ajax
    Feb 19, 2014
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    But, those are expensive sports everywhere else as well. It becomes an issue in Soccer since it is the community game everywhere else.
     
  10. Elninho

    Elninho Member+

    Sacramento Republic FC
    United States
    Oct 30, 2000
    Sacramento, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I was watching female rifle shooting. It was a Korean vs a Russian. The Russian gal looked Asia-American.[/QUOTE]

    Uh, a Russian wouldn't be Asian-American, would she?
     
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  11. bigredfutbol

    bigredfutbol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Sep 5, 2000
    Woodbridge, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #186 bigredfutbol, Aug 15, 2016
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2016
    And quite a bit of Russia is actually Asia, for that matter.
     
  12. Kombucha

    Kombucha Member+

    Jul 1, 2016
    Club:
    --other--
    I think people underestimate the size of the country as well.

    Texas is slightly bigger than France and almost twice the size of Germany.

    Even if we get to the point where we have 40 MLS Teams all with excellent academies there is still enormous amounts of people that are going to live hours and hours from the closest academy.

    Jaylin Lindsey is another example. From Charlotte, but ended up at SKC Academy at age 15 and started for SPR over the weekend. Charlotte is a big city, but the closest MLS options are 6 hours north to DC or 4 hours south to Atlanta. Neither of which have USL Teams. To get in with a program with a USL option then you have to go to Philly. Even if Lindsey went to the closest MLS option in Atlanta you have to move the family or get a host family. Really the same even if you went to Raleigh with the Railhawks who have a good program that is 2.5 hours. Not doable for training.

    There is always going to be a healthy portion of the population that are not going to have a great option with-in an hours drive and even an hours drive is tough for most families.
     
  13. tyguy

    tyguy Member

    Apr 11, 2006
    Cheeseland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Uh, a Russian wouldn't be Asian-American, would she?[/QUOTE]

    That was a joke. I've always wondered what, say European black people, would be called by Americans. I found the 'African American' thing a bit odd. Many black folks are not African. I once worked with a lady from Jamaica who had nothing to do with Africa. Oddly, our boss was African American. He was a white. From South Africa.
     
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  14. Elninho

    Elninho Member+

    Sacramento Republic FC
    United States
    Oct 30, 2000
    Sacramento, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    That was a joke. I've always wondered what, say European black people, would be called by Americans. I found the 'African American' thing a bit odd. Many black folks are not African. I once worked with a lady from Jamaica who had nothing to do with Africa. Oddly, our boss was African American. He was a white. From South Africa.[/QUOTE]

    Ah, yes. When I was an undergrad at Caltech, there was one year my House simultaneously had both the fewest black members and the most African-Americans of the seven undergrad houses -- because all our black students were American while about half of those in other houses were not, and we also had a few naturalized US citizens from Egypt, Morocco, and South Africa. (You get statistical oddities like this in small populations.)
     
  15. england66

    england66 Member+

    Jan 6, 2004
    dallas, texas
    Like wise I have never heard the term 'African Englishman'.....one of my good friends is a black man born in England...... He is English.
     
  16. charlieblanko

    charlieblanko Member

    Dec 8, 2006
    cal south
    Club:
    Arsenal FC

    I agree with you. It's the culture inept. Things are changing... and my boy is proof.
     
  17. charlieblanko

    charlieblanko Member

    Dec 8, 2006
    cal south
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    I think this also tells the tale of why our national team is mediocre, of ole. Our new kids are diverse and better, still no real latin influence, but still playing abroad becoming smarter than their predecessors. The demographic makeup of children playing club-high level soccer in the U.S. is NOT reflected in college. Where the talent goes at 14-17 is very-very telling of where the talent will be at 20. The over used "d" word is vital at that young age and if you can afford to get it abroad, because of a lack of coaching or detailed training in the states, then the finances and scouted allocated talent become the next task. I do believe these talented coaches and clubs can and do provide the soccer culture you need to create a great international player, but we are skeptics in the states. I'm not rich, but my son's club helps. The US seems to be stifled on the youth scouting level, mostly picking big boys over skilled and coachable ones, hence a team that doesn't mature and a system that hasn't seem to mature either.
     
  18. Matthew Johnson

    Sep 6, 2013
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Let me start out by saying that there are definite racial divides in this country. Racism is real. Not only that but in some cases it is a defining characteristic of interactions between folks.

    That said, America has a class conscienceness problem. We've all been raised to believe that 'we're all middle class' even though a vanishingly small amount of us our. But since middle classism is one of the pervading myths of the American Dream (tied along to: if you work hard, and play by the rules, you won't be poor) we've been conditioned to reject any class labels. All REAL Americans are middle class.

    ******** that. Racism and and Classism pervade our national fabric.

    It's not that soccer is failing our people of color.

    It's that soccer is failing our poor (and almost all people of color are poor).

    Yeah, not to much to do with soccer, but feel that if we can't talk about actual problem, we can't formulate and then act on a solution.
     
  19. Olo2317

    Olo2317 Member

    Jun 1, 2014
    Club:
    CA River Plate
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina


    Jersey city heights new jersey
     
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  20. soccermilitant

    soccermilitant Member+

    Jan 14, 2009
    St.paul
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    here in Minnesota you and high school soccer teams are full of Somali, ethopian, hmong and Hispanic americans . I don't know what the author talking about.
     
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  21. Tom Ado

    Tom Ado Member

    Jun 25, 2015
    #196 Tom Ado, Sep 14, 2016
    Last edited: Sep 14, 2016
    Definitely not exclusive to soccer. This has me thinking about soccer and baseball's similar plight, in light of Adam Jones' recent comments about baseball being a white man's sport: Both are get-out-of-poverty sports in other parts of the world, but suburban and middle-class in the US. If you're a socioeconomically-disadvantaged male trying to develop your skills in any sport other than football or basketball, good luck.
     
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  22. charlieblanko

    charlieblanko Member

    Dec 8, 2006
    cal south
    Club:
    Arsenal FC

    I see this more and more around America. Our young generation creates their own soccer culture. My son plays indoor in GA (we moved from so cal) with a 90% hispanic team. Hell, I'm an AA man with a half hispanic son and we don't watch football, baseball, or basketball. We are a soccer family and surround ourselves with his teammates families who are like ourselves. The U.S. is the best country in the world and one of the reasons is being within your own culture still while living here. I think our youth system should be modernized to deal with the onslaught of young talent NEEDING to be cultivated. Using mostly white kids is hindering our progress. The good old boys running the system don't seem to think outside of that box with their picking process, or haven't in the past. The US national team, the best 11, is a diverse group rarely seen on the pitch actually. When the US team reflects our actual demographic makeup of our elite players in the U.S., we will then be powerhouses.
     
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  23. bostondiesel

    bostondiesel Member

    Oct 23, 2006
    ???

    Native American, Asian Americans, Racially Mixed players,SEVERAL players of Latin American descent, Black players, Players with parents from the West Indies and some Caucasian players....an African born player ????

    Our society has plenty to improve upon but I'm not sure the natty team is deserving of criticism for lack of diversity...

    Please elaborate?
     
  24. Kombucha

    Kombucha Member+

    Jul 1, 2016
    Club:
    --other--
    I don't know if it is true across the board, but when I looked at a few MLS Academy U16/U18 USSDA Rosters the names look pretty multicultural to me. I would wager that the rosters are way more diverse than the population of the US as a whole.
     
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