More Than a Game
During the summer of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, hosted across North America, the UCLA Latin American Institute's K-12 outreach program invited teachers to look beyond the game itself. Through More Than a Game: Soccer, Migration, and Community teachers' workshop, 24 educators explored how soccer intersects with questions of migration, identity, race, and belonging across Latin America and Los Angeles.
Educators from across Los Angeles participated in the three-day institute, with most from the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Through presentations, discussions, and activities, participants examined how soccer can serve as a starting point for understanding the histories, cultures, and communities that connect Latin America and Los Angeles. They also considered how to incorporate these topics into their own classrooms.
Beyond the Field
The institute brought together scholars from a range of disciplines, including history, anthropology, sociology, education, and public history. Their presentations showed how soccer can open broader discussions about migration, race, identity, labor, and belonging across Latin America and the United States.
The first day established a historical foundation for understanding soccer in Latin America. Dr. Joshua Nadel (North Carolina Central University) examined the sport's development across the region, highlighting its role in both systems of power and forms of resistance. Building on this foundation, the second day shifted toward contemporary questions of immigration, race, and community. Dr. David Trouille (James Madison University) explored how soccer has shaped immigrant experiences, labor histories, and community life in Los Angeles.
Dr. Gloriana Rodríguez Alvarez (King's College London) then turned participants' attention to Costa Rica, using soccer to examine questions of race, identity, and belonging. Her presentation explored a difficult contradiction: athletes may be honored for representing their nation while still facing racism and exclusion.
The final day at UCLA featured presentations that highlighted the powerful connections between sports, community, and identity. Dr. Kathy Pulupa (University of Southern California) shared insights from her work with Latinx youth in LAUSD after-school programs, exploring how access to green spaces and participation in sports influence identity formation. Through ethnographic and archival approaches, she encouraged educators to consider how students’ experiences shape their understanding of themselves and their communities.
Dr. Romeo Guzmán (Claremont Graduate University) focused on the role of public history in preserving community stories through sports. Using examples from The Other Football and Day of Solidarity, he illustrated how digital storytelling, community archives, and historical preservation efforts can bring visibility to underrepresented experiences.
The institute concluded with a presentation by Dr. Rubén Hernández-León (UCLA), who examined how Mexican immigrants in Dalton, Georgia, have used soccer as a means of building community, creating belonging, and asserting their presence in public spaces despite ongoing challenges related to discrimination and inequality.
Teachers also brought their own communities into the workshop through a mini oral history activity. After interviewing a family member, friend, neighbor, or community member about their connection to soccer, educators returned with stories of migration journeys, family traditions, childhood memories, and community ties. Sharing these stories on the second day enriched the discussion and grounded many of the workshop's themes in everyday experience.
From the workshop to the classroom
The workshop also challenged participants to consider how they could bring these conversations into their classrooms. Drawing on the presentations and discussions, educators developed lesson plans that used soccer to introduce students to different aspects of Latin American history, culture, and community.
The resulting projects reflected the diversity of both the participants and the subjects they teach. For example, Oliver Evangelista, a physical education teacher at Belvedere Middle School, developed an oral history project for his eighth-grade soccer unit. Students interview a family member, coach, or community member about their soccer experiences and use those stories to examine identity, family traditions, community, and belonging.
Another approach: Elva Lopez, a Spanish teacher at San Fernando High School, created a lesson for tenth-grade Spanish speakers that combines language learning with questions of migration, identity, and community. Students use Spanish-language sources to examine how soccer can help migrant communities maintain cultural identity and build connections.
In a different discipline, Gregory Smith, a Film Production teacher at Jefferson Senior High School, developed Soccer, Identity, and the Moving Image. This five-lesson unit asks students to analyze how film and media shape soccer stories before creating a documentary proposal, video essay, or short film of their own.
Together, these projects show how educators adapted the workshop's themes to different subjects and grade levels. Soccer became a way to collect family histories in physical education, explore migration and culture in Spanish, and examine representation and storytelling in film production. While the lessons differed in subject matter and approach, each used soccer as a starting point for discussions about identity, community, and belonging.
Beyond the Workshop
What began during the three-day workshop now has the potential to reach students in classrooms across Los Angeles. Teachers left UCLA with new resources, lesson plans, and approaches for engaging students in conversations about migration, identity, community, and belonging.
This work lies at the heart of the Latin American Institute's K-12 outreach mission: connecting scholarship on Latin America with educators who bring it into their classrooms. More Than a Game shows how those connections go beyond the university, creating opportunities for students to think about Latin America, their communities, and the ties between them.