Empire, Sport, and Religion in Puerto Rico and Cuba’s YMCA, 1898-1930s

2017 Joint Area Centers Symposium
Antonio Sotomayor, Assistant Professor & Librarian of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

This presentation will address the intersection of sport, religion, and imperialism through the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) as an extension of United States expansion into Puerto Rico and Cuba after the Spanish American War of 1898. The YMCA’s emphasis on “muscular Christianity” and sports made it attractive to some locals who welcomed this feature of U.S. Americanization. The story of the YMCA in Puerto Rico and Cuba shows the ways in which YMCA leaders sought to bring Protestant progress to a Catholic “oppressed” people, while many locals welcomed a progressive institution of modern sports. My argument blurs the line between resistance and acculturation and sees the early development of sport in Puerto Rico and Cuba as a process of negotiations over power, identity, and culture. These negotiations resulted in the mass adoption of American sports, yet the overall denial of Protestantism, to legitimize a hegemonic relation.