Joel S. Franks – författare

Crossing Sidelines, Crossing Cultures crosses disciplines in order to examine an unexplored facet of American racial and ethnic experiences-Asian Pacific American participation in sports. Joel S. Franks examines the experiences of famous and not so famous Asian Pacific American athletes from the late 1800s to the present. Through the stories of athletes such as swimmer Duke Kahanamoku and figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi, Franks demonstrates how Asian Pacific Americans have overcome discrimination and stereotypes to cross the cultural barriers that separate them from other American racial and ethnic groups. This book reveals how the struggles that Asian Pacific Americans face in their desire to assert their cultural citizenship are often expressed through sports.

With the rise of stars such as Hideo Nomo, Ichiro Suzuki, and now Daisuke Matsuzaka, fans today can easily name players from the island country of Japan. Less widely known is that baseball has long been played on other Pacific islands, in pre-statehood Hawaii, for instance, and in Guam, Samoa and the Philippines. For the multiethnic peoples of these U.S. possessions, the learning of baseball was actively encouraged, some would argue as a means to an unabashedly colonialist end.As early as the deadball era, Pacific Islanders competed against each other and against mainlanders on the diamond, with teams like the Hawaiian Travelers barnstorming the States, winning more than they lost against college, semi-pro, and even professional nines. For those who moved to the mainland, baseball eased the transition, helping Asian Pacific Americans create a sense of community and purpose, cross cultural borders, and--for a few--achieve fame.

This book chronicles the Hawaiian Travelers, a barnstorming baseball team of multiethnic, multiracial Hawaiians, who played across the continental U.S. from 1912 through 1916. This team took on college, semi-professional, minor league, and African American nines. In the process, they won the majority of these games, while subverting venerable racial conventions. It also describes the experiences of some of these players after 1916 as they sought baseball careers on the East Coast of the mainland. This book sheds light on a generally untold story about baseball, race, and colonization in the United States during the early decades of the 20th century.

When Jeremy Lin began to knock down shots for the New York Knicks in 2012, many Americans became aware for the first time that Asian Americans actually play basketball. Indeed, long before Lin shook up the NBA, Asian Americans played the game with passion and skill, and many excelled at high school, college and professional hoops. This comprehensive history of Asian American basketball discusses how these players first found a sense of community in the game, and competed despite an atmosphere of anti-Asian bigotry in historical and contemporary America.

This book examines the importance of California - a socio-cultural, economic and political powerhouse - in the history of modern sport. It argues that California has had a profound influence, for better or worse, on the way that not only America but also the wider world plays sport and spends money to watch others play.The book traces the history of sport in California from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, and looks at how the state’s historical development, its climate, and its unique racial and ethnic demographics have influenced sport at the elite level and in the wider community. It considers the importance of spatial politics and cultural citizenship in the development of Californian sport, and tells the story of how franchises such as the 49ers and the Lakers, as well as individual athletes such as Jackie Robinson and Billie Jean King have had a profound influence on the way their sports have been consumed, across America and in the wider world. The book also takes a close look at the impact of mega-sporting events in the Californian story, providing historical context for the LA 2028 Olympic Games and tracing the full arc of the ‘Californization’ of modern sports.This is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in sport history, American history, social and cultural history, or the relationship between sport and wider society.

This book sheds light on experiences relatively underrepresented in academic and non-academic sport history. It examines how Asian and Pacific Islander peoples used American football to maintain a sense of community while encountering racial exclusion, labor exploitation, and colonialism. Through their participation and spectatorship in American football, Asian and Pacific Islander people crossed treacherous cultural frontiers to construct what sociologist Elijah Anderson has called a cosmopolitan canopy under which Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, and people of diverse racial and ethnic identities interacted with at least a semblance of respect and equity. And perhaps a surprising number of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have excelled in college and even professional football before the 1960s. Finally, acknowledging the impressive influx of elite Pacific Islander gridders who surfaced in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, it is vital to note as well the racialized nativism shadowing the lives of these athletes.

From 1912 to 1916, a group of baseball players from Hawaiʻ i barnstormed the U.S. mainland. While initially all Chinese, the Travelers became more multiethnic and multiracial with ballplayers possessing Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiian, and European ancestries. As a group and as individuals the Travelers' experiences represent a still much too marginalized facet of baseball and sport history. Arguably, they traveled more miles and played in more ball parks in the American empire than any other group of ballplayers of their time. Outside of the major leagues, they were likely the most famous nine of the 1910s, dominating their college opponents and more than holding their own against top-flight white and black independent teams. And once the Travelers' journeys were done, a team leader and star Buck Lai gained fame in independent baseball on the East Coast of the U.S., while former teammates ran base paths and ran for political office as they confronted racism and colonialism in Hawaiʻ i.