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Golden But Not Brown: Oscar De La Hoya and the Complications of Culture,Manhood, and BoxingFernando Delgado

Online Publication Date: 01 March 2005

To cite this Article Delgado, Fernando(2005)'Golden But Not Brown: Oscar De La Hoya and the Complications of Culture, Manhood,and Boxing',International Journal of the History of Sport,22:2,196 — 211

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Golden But Not Brown: Oscar De LaHoya and the Complications ofCulture, Manhood, and BoxingFernando Delgado

This essay explores the contours of how professional boxing champion Oscar De La Hoya

has been constructed through the popular and boxing press. The analysis points to thecomplicated relationships between ethnicity, masculinity and public personae and howone sporting icon is poised between two communities: the Latino community,

predominantly in the South-west of the USA, and the broader mainstream audiencesfor sport and entertainment. The essay explores how De La Hoya’s success and quest for

mainstream acceptance has complicated how his ‘home’ communities react to andposition him as a fighter, media icon, and Latino male.

As so often happens with scholarly writing in the area of media studies, opportunities

for critique and analysis present themselves in the most unexpected ways. In thepresent case, my perusal of periodicals for my studies into football yielded an

unexpected result. In the open stacks of the library at Arizona State University Ifound a specialist magazine that examines professional boxing. What was remarkableabout this magazine was not the cover that touted a ‘classic’ bout between the

‘Golden Boy’ Oscar De La Hoya and Felix Trinidad (a fight in which De La Hoyasuffered his first professional defeat), but what someone had scrawled across the

image of De La Hoya: a common three-letter epithet typically used to question anddefame the masculinity and heterosexuality of males in the US.

This grabbed my attention, and I began to consider the relationship between De LaHoya and the various communities who would be interested in his success or failure.

My first impressions were that those with the greatest interest are that diversecollective known as boxing aficionados or, more broadly, sports fans. However, a

brief exploration of the sporting literature surrounding De La Hoya suggested richer

Fernando Delgado, Minnesota State University. Correspondence to: [email protected]

The International Journal of the History of SportVol. 22, No. 2, March 2005, 196 – 211

ISSN 0952-3367 (print)/ISSN 1743-9035 (online) # 2005 Taylor & Francis Group LtdDOI: 10.1080/09523360500035818

Downloaded By: [Liverpool John Moores University] At: 14:25 22 February 2009

possibilities, including the exploration of how and why his masculinity resonatedwith various communities. Of course, in an analysis of US popular and sporting

media, considerations of De La Hoya’s mediated masculine persona and its receptioncannot easily be disentangled from the related issues of race and ethnicity given his

status as a Mexican American. And so the serendipitous discovery of De La Hoya’simage with the word ‘fag’ written across his forehead has led to the present

consideration of how his race, masculinity and identity raise interesting questionsabout identity, authenticity and the meaning of manliness in perhaps the most

masculine of all sports.

Boxing and Masculinity

Boxing is one of several global sports that manifest the connections between

masculinity, sport and culture. The British sociologist John Sugden observes thatboxing ‘has proven to be very resistant to female involvement’.[1] Exploring the

question of how and where boxing takes place, Loic Wacquant identifies the boxinggym as a ‘quintessentially masculine space’,[2] while Varda Burstyn observes that

despite the incursions of female managers, judges and, most significantly, pugilists,‘boxing is uncontestably a violent sport, and a masculine sport’.[3] The renowned

novelist Joyce Carol Oates claims that ‘" The sweet science of bruising’’ celebrates thephysicality of men even as it dramatizes the limitations, sometimes tragic, more oftenpoignant, of the physical’,[4] nicely summing up the elemental nature of boxing as a

forum for testing masculinity, will and strength. From these viewpoints boxing wouldappear to be an athletic activity designed to test, perform and sustain masculinity,

with the vision of the masculine it engenders a particularly violent and predatory one.It is common for sporting commentators in the US to refer to boxing as the ‘sweet

science’, but it can be argued that it is at its foundation a ‘manly art’, a site where themost basic tests for humanity and – tragically and all too commonly – survival of the

fittest are enacted.Quite apart from what happens in the ring – with the associated violent, military

and masculinist metaphors of bombs thrown, the hammering of the opponent and

the obligatory allusions to destruction, punishment, and battering – are the lurid talesof boxers’ lives outside the ring. Indeed, it may be the aggressive and deviant

masculine behaviour of the likes of Mike Tyson in their everyday life that inflate themasculinist dimensions of how we perceive and culturally construct such ‘bruisers’ in

the ring. John Sloop’s analysis of Mike Tyson, a now notorious pugilist onceperceived to be ‘unable to behave in any but an animalistic fashion both in and out of

the ring’,[5] demonstrates the contiguities between the persona of an athlete and thepresumptions about behaviour and athletic prowess and style. As Sloop explores

media and marketing constructions of Tyson from the early 1990s, when he wastellingly known as ‘Iron Mike’, he finds a boxer and a man whose dimensions havebeen conflated and flattened. As a result of these processes, to most people Tyson is

‘not only unable to control his aggression, but he is also mechanistic, a killing

The International Journal of the History of Sport 197


machine that cannot be unplugged. Indeed, Tyson has no heart; he punishes withoutguilt.’[6]

The lurid visions of the predatory Tyson are linked to other constructions andmedia articulations of boxers over the course of several generations. Indeed, the

violence and malevolence attached to Tyson are of the sort that have been attributedto champion boxers such as Sonny Liston, Jake La Motta (immortalized in Martin

Scorsese’s Raging Bull) and Roberto ‘manos de piedra’ (hands of stone) Duran.Indeed, most professional boxers would be happy to possess and be renowned for

most of these characteristics, at least in the ring. Lest we forget, even before Tysonbecame infamous for his aggression and wilful disregard for humanity, many in theworlds of boxing and sport more widely made him famous precisely because these

traits were present, most especially in the ring.While each culture may have its own notions of grace and style, both in and out of

the ring, cultural conceptions of pride and power generally overwhelm the moreeffeminate and, to further extend the stereotype, hysterical dimensions of boxing.

Even now when we see female boxers, including the daughters of Joe Frazier andMuhammad Ali, on the undercards of major professional bouts, they are curiosities

and their fights precursors to the main event: men punishing each other in the hopesof submission, knockout or the judges’ decision. Whatever the role of female boxers,

be it as managers, judges, fans or ring girls, the essence of boxing remains a contesttypically reduced to two men beating each other. Typically, the denouement of aboxing match involves a predator stalking his prey, and the exceptions to this rule,

like the ‘wars’ involving the evenly-matched Marco Antonio Barrera and ErikMorales or the spirited battles between Arturo Gatti and Mickey Ward, prove to be

even bloodier tests of a boxer’s ability to absorb and mete out physical punishment.While a cross-generational, cross-cultural undertaking that examines boxing and

masculinity would be a worthy project, this essay’s focus is narrower, centring onhow masculinity is performed in and out of the ring and how it is perceived and

circulated by boxing fans and the print media. The focal point is Oscar De LaHoya, a Mexican American boxer whose rise from an amateur to the professionalranks has been remarkable and is reflective in his nickname, ‘Golden Boy’. As a

an Olympic gold medallist and several times world champion across a number ofweight divisions, we might expect that De La Hoya’s masculinity and identity

would not be questioned because of his success in the most violent of sports. Butas so often happens, mere championship performance in the crucible of public

scrutiny does not always satisfy our projected visions of who or what a fighter, letalone a champion, should be in and out of the ring. Mining similar territory,

Gregory Rodriguez observes that De La Hoya’s own efforts in relation to mediaimages have complicated the ways in which audiences, consumers and particularly

fans have received De La Hoya as a fighter and as a man.[7] What follows then, isan exploration of constructions of De La Hoya as both fighter and man and howthese have much to tell us about identity politics in the US in relation to sport,

Latinos and masculinity.

198 F. Delgado


The Rise of the Golden Boy

Since the 1992 Olympics De La Hoya has been a significant figure in boxing,becoming among its most popular and marketable athletes. For a decade he has been

in the headlines, both as a boxer of marketable skill and as a celebrity always on theverge of being the Latino version of Muhammad Ali or perhaps Sugar Ray Leonard.

De La Hoya’s rise from the Eastside Boxing Club, located in an area of Los Angeleswhere ‘if you want to be respected . . . you want to be able to fight[8] to the height of

the boxing world and a position as the public face (to both Spanish-speaking andEnglish-speaking audiences) for a variety of consumer products, was nothing short ofmeteoric.

De La Hoya’s professional career has been dotted with signature and championshipbouts across several weight divisions, including symbolically significant contests

against fellow Latino and Latin American boxers. He has served as the poster-boy forprofessional boxing in the US, a fresh-faced, reluctant assassin whose own rise

coincided with the collapse of Mike Tyson. In short, he has accomplished what othergreat champions of the recent past have done, most notably Sugar Ray Leonard: he has

crossed over into the mainstream USmedia and entertainment culture.[9] That he hasbeen the first Latino boxer to do so this is significant both as an accomplishment

during a period where boxing has suffered from commercial decline and because it isconsonant with a general heightened awareness of Latino cultures and celebrities. Onseveral levels, then, De La Hoya is a crossover success according to the US imaginary,

having risen from the mean streets to heights of wealth and celebrity.Regardless of what other endeavours De La Hoya has more recently pursued – and,

significantly, they are the more ‘feminine’ activities of singing and acting – hisenduring fame stems from his ability to beat opponents in the ring. De La Hoya, a

product of the predominantly Latino and underclass neighbourhoods of East LosAngeles, proudly Mexican American and part of the tradition of East Los Angeles

boxers, has been the Golden Boy of his area, of the Mexican American communityand of professional boxing. Yet, despite his roots and his success both in and out ofthe ring, De La Hoya occupies an interesting position as a subject constructed by and

reflected in both the sports and entertainment media as well as the Latinocommunity, particularly the Mexican American communities across the US South-

west. Located at the crossroads between ethnic and cultural pride and assimilation,De La Hoya represents the potential of Latinos in the US and, by extension, the

potential to reproduce discourses that coincide with ‘the new cultural racism thatinformed the agenda of conservative administrations [at both the state and federal

levels] of the late twentieth century’.[10]De La Hoya participates in media, sport and promotional discourses that provoke

disquiet among certain Latino sectors, particularly fight fans, who perceive him to beneither brown enough nor man enough within the terms established by his ‘home’community. De La Hoya has not matched the expectation that he would be part of a

line of Latino fighters, extending from North to South America, who exhibit the



preferred predisposition for an aggressive, hard-punching fighting style in the ringand a nearly stereotypical machismo – silent, brooding, aggressive – outside the ring.

Instead, De La Hoya has often opted for a more clinical and dispassionate style in thering and a winning and decidedly sunny and engaging demeanour in public. In

contrast to the tradition of Mexican and Mexican American fighters who prefer onespeed and one direction – all out and moving forward – De La Hoya’s style and

demeanour have suggested another way. As his biographer, sports journalist TimKawakami, writes:

The legends, like Julio Cesar Chavez and the Panamanian Roberto Duran andPipino Cuevas, all were blunt battering rams, willing to wade into an opponent andbreak him apart, one body shot at a time. For the Mexican-American communityof East LA, that was machismo incarnate. Boxing was not art, it was survival.Winning was about persevering, and about ferociousness, and it translated to thestreet brawls and the boxing gyms and the six-year-old kids.[11]

This was not the way for De La Hoya, who from an early stage eschewed physicalconfrontation and the inflated postures of the macho. De La Hoya, Kawakami writes,

‘was, he admits it himself, a madre’s boy[12] In short, from early on he violatedcultural expectations of Latino males and Latino boxers in particular.

The contrast between expectation and performance is summarized nicely by TobyMiller’s analysis of reactions to De La Hoya’s 1999 title bout loss to Felix Trinidad:‘Well ahead on points, De La Hoya, whose appeal rests on beautiful style and

beautiful looks, elected to move away from his opponent in the closing rounds, lesthe be hit hard. The controversial decision against him was thought to have been a

punitive reaction to this ‘‘unmanliness’’.’ [13] The challenge, then, is to understandthe ways in which De La Hoya’s persona, in the ring and outside it, challenges

notions of Latino masculinity and identity. De La Hoya is complicit in and subject tothe processes that construct and reify his cultural positioning vis-a-vis Mexican

American boxing fans and, by extension, Latino fans, potential fans and mediaconsumers. Seemingly the embodiment of everything that would make him a heroicmale, De La Hoya instead is often the target of critiques that question his masculinity

and his relationship to an authentic Mexican American identity, as a man and afighter. In the following pages I will examine the construction of Oscar De La Hoya as

a Mexican American boxer and how he provokes a discussion of Latino-ness,masculine identity and, by extension, sexuality.

Masculinity in the US: Hegemony and Beyond

The construction of masculinity in the US, particularly through the mass media and

sport, remains predominantly white and heterosexual. Messner, Dunbar and Huntobserve that certain cultural and gendered characteristics endure when televisionprovides coverage of sport: ‘The Televised Sports Manhood Formula provides a

remarkably stable and concrete view of masculinity as grounded in bravery, risk

200 F. Delgado


taking, violence, bodily strength, and heterosexuality.’ [14] Such masculine virtuesare typically ascribed to Anglo-American males and reify common cultural and

sporting myths, all of which is understandable given the central role that sports andathletics play in US culture.

Built upon the foundation established by the work of Connell and other scholarswho have explored sport and masculinity,[15] analyses of masculine identity,

particularly those of sporting figures filtered through the mass media, have remainedconsistent in their critique of the articulation of a hegemonic masculinity, a culturally

idealized form of maleness.[16] As such, these ideal males ‘may reside in fantasyfigures or models remote from the lives of the unheroic majority’,[17] and can beeffectively transmitted via channels of the mass media and as forms of popular

culture. In the sporting arena, the efforts of various scholars have suggested howmediated sports provide a powerful vehicle for constructing and disseminating

preferred notions of male identity, subjectivity and behaviour.[ 18]In relation to male athletes, scholars have argued that specific characteristics of

hegemonic masculinity emerge. Trujillo’s analysis of the now retired Major LeagueBaseball pitcher Nolan Ryan echoes the elements described by Messner, Dunbar and

Hunt. Trujillo notes that ‘media representations of sport naturalize hegemonicmasculinity when they depict its features as conventional or acceptable’.[19]

Furthermore, they cement the connection between cultural values and audiences/viewers because ‘media representations personalize hegemonic masculinity when theyelevate individuals who embody its features as role models or heroes worthy of

adoration and emulation’.[20] The embodiment of certain myths, values andidentities that are communicated through the mass media and represented by athletes

such as Nolan Ryan simultaneously reflect and articulate preferred cultural discoursesof masculinity. Ryan particularly fits the mould of the hegemonic masculine male

athlete and the attendant cultural, racial and sexual identities important in theAmerican mythos of the male. Ryan embodies athletic excellence and dominance at

the same time as he iconically represents the rugged individualism and mythology ofthe Western cowboy.As a result of their embodiment of masculine virtues and their reflections of

mainstream formulae for the ideal male, articulations of hegemonic masculinityinevitably restrict ethnic and racialized males, as well as females and gay men. For

example, Orbe notes that black males on US television are subject to restricted codesof representation. In the field of athletics even a figure such as Michael Jordan, whose

fame and popularity would suggest a transcendent quality, remains ‘extremely Blackand his race is a definite signifier of his spectacle’.[21] In the US what is expected

from our masculine sport heroes is that they be white and heterosexual. (Here I referto mainstream cultural constructions that define and naturalize masculine variants as

preferred or natural and, concurrently, ‘depict alternatives as unconventional ordeviant’.[22]) As a result, Nolan Ryan embodies the idealized male hero – silent,powerful, menacing, successful – a character rooted in rural America. Coincidentally,

Ryan is from Texas. The Westerner who went to the big city and achieved fame, a



replication of countless and overlapping myths of success and manhood found in theAmerican imaginary. Ryan’s positioning reflects the power of Western mythologies of

cowboys and frontiersmen as he becomes the sporting equivalent of the strong, silentand morally upstanding hero in the line of figures such as Gary Cooper.

Nevertheless, while this masculine ideal, suffused with traditional and conventionalAnglo-American heterosexual male coding, may still exert hegemonic force in the US

imaginary, ruptures and alternatives are becoming more prevalent. Miller andDonaldson correctly note the shifting cultural practices and commodity preferences

that complicate the persistence of a hegemonic masculinity, particularly in the heavilycommodified world of mass media athletics. Miller, surveying the symbolic andmaterial dimensions of spectator sport, observes that ‘spectator sports reference all

the complexities of contemporary capitalism, played out over the public bodies ofheadlined workers. Sports’ gender politics at the elite level today are from a

functionalist world of total domination by straight, orthodox masculinity because ofthe niche targets that these commodified signs are directed toward (such as straight

women and gay men).’ [23]Despite a growing general awareness of the exploitative potential that media

producers identify when they discover new audiences and market segments, thepresence of the hegemonic male continues to cast a large shadow over the male types

that are constructed in and through the mass media and popular culture. There islittle doubt that media and sporting discourses are conflated to deploy the hegemonicposition that roughly parallels the shadows of class, gender and racial and sexual

orientation as these construct a centre and a periphery in any society. Therefore,while what is hegemonic may have shifted, media sociologist Robert Hanke takes

note of how media representations of masculinity seek to maintain control andcontinually reposition the preferred male in the centre.[24] When variations appear

at last to have ruptured the hegemonic construction of the masculine, we should bewary since ‘hegemonic masculinity changes in order to remain hegemonic’.[25]

Elsewhere, Hanke also argues that in the face of alterations and challenges to stableand conservative (or traditional) masculine stereotypes certain variations remaindominant.[26]

Hanke raises important questions regarding the continuities of masculinity incontemporary culture while directing scholars to engage in cross-disciplinary

scholarship that destabilizes modes of inquiry. In the process of analysing masculinityon US television, Hanke suggests that the inquiries themselves challenge a stable

centre of hegemonic masculinity, unmasking and revealing hidden discourses andassumptions regarding masculinity that, in the US at least, are unquestioningly

accepted. But, while noting that there is a socio-cultural power of hegemonicmasculinity that can be challenged by ethnic and racial males, women and gay men,

we should also note that social and demographic shifts may point to particularhegemonic masculinities within so-called sub-cultural groups, exactly thosecommunities that exist on the cultural, economic and political periphery of the

United States. The presence of alternative hierarchies of masculine identity is hinted

202 F. Delgado


at in the works of Miller and Donaldson and, with regards to Latinos, explored byscholars representing a range of academic interests.[27]

In the US long-standing ethnic communities, infused by continuing waves ofimmigrants and connected through various geographical, communicative and

technological means, can develop alternative mainstreams, existing in oppositionto or defiance of the Euro American, hegemonic mainstream. Latinos, for example,

may have the cultural and media resources to articulate masculine identities whoseattributes are sustained by cultural myths, by self-stereotyping, by traditions and

rituals and by the more obvious impact of contemporary popular culture formsdisseminated via the mass media. In many cases such alternatives come withattendant disturbing elements that also exclude and diminish feminized and gay

identities. Nevertheless, the global and mediated realities of the present suggest thatgroups such as Latinos in the US have the capacity to engage forms of popular and

everyday culture that reinforce alternatives to the US mainstream while generatingpreferred and dominant values, identities and discourses.

Masculinity of a Different Colour

De La Hoya, then, is measured against two masculine conceptions. Measured against

the Euro American variation, he falls short only to the extent that his Latino-nessstands in the way. His demeanour, his language and his aspirations all reflect amainstream, middle-class value system. Journalist Mark Kriegel entitled his essay on

De La Hoya ‘The Great (Almost) White Hope’ and noted that among the crowd atthe Riviera (Los Angeles) Country Club ‘Oscar De La Hoya looks like anything but

what he is’.[28] But this is what lies at the crux of the issue of De La Hoya’s identity:is he a Mexican American boxer who has done well and fulfilled a now well-worn tale

of athletic achievement or is he a cultural turncoat who has little in common with hisculture and community? Indeed, one of the claims lodged against De La Hoya by

many is that he has forgotten his cultural (and class) roots. In the aftermath of hisvictory over Mexican hero Julio Cesar Chavez, De La Hoya was seen by many as a‘sellout’ to ‘those who accuse him of having abandoned his Mexican roots’[29]

because of how he fought and who he associated with in the afterglow of his victory.Injecting culture and ethnic identity destabilizes hegemonic masculinity,[30] and

the relationship between De La Hoya’s public persona, media constructions of himand the interplay with Latino communities and voices raises the issue of masculinity

and brownness. Interjecting a value and identity system associated with culturalothers and their experiences as ‘hyphenated’ Americans disrupts Euro American

hegemonic masculine identities, and we are led to alternatives that invite connectionsto other cultural and even national experiences. These connections link to preferences

for particular gendered identities: in the sporting sphere De La Hoya was expected tobe more hombre and less papi chulo.[31]In the case of Mexican American masculinity there is significant carryover from

cultural expectations brought from Mexico and rearticulated in the US. Gutmann



notes that the macho male came to play an important role in nation-building inpostcolonial Mexico, while in the US ‘machismo has been associated with negative

character traits not among men in general, but specifically among Mexican, MexicanAmerican, and Latin American men’.[32] Yet, as Gutmann suggests, in a more

complicated reality where masculinity and machismo are less prevalent or clearlydefined, the shadows of historical and cultural preferences remain. For example,

focusing on the legacy of Oscar Lewis’s The Children of Sanchez,[33] Gutmanndemonstrates the linkage of machismo to characteristic traits of the Mexican male

identity: never surrendering, struggling to the death and being courageous.Echoing the themes Gutmann raises in his analysis of The Children of Sanchez, the

film Internal Affairs offers a more recent expression of these characteristics. In the

film a malevolent and corrupt Euro American police officer sucker-punches theheroic Latino internal affairs investigator in an elevator. Unrelenting and struggling

to retaliate, the Latino officer takes a beating rather than surrender. The villain sneersat his beaten but struggling opponent, noting that the problem with Latin fighters is

that they never know when to give up, which is why they get spent so early in theircareers. This stereotype appears to have cultural resonance on both sides of the

border. Though we might debate the everyday existence of such males, the culturalimaginations of communities on both sides of the border often project some or all of

this stereotype onto its heroes, including athletes. The shadow of the Mexican machoas an expression of what Andrew Rivera terms ‘exaggerated masculinity’[34] remainsa part of Mexican and Mexican American projections and may be considered an

expression of resistance to the hegemonic white male ideal in the US.[35]The emergence of a vibrant US Latino popular culture encourages the presence of

preferred cultural and gender attributes – even if they are mythologized, idealized orhighly stylized. Operating in tandem with the mass media, these potentially unreal

visions of Latino identity can be embodied by sports figures that are larger than lifeyet still resonate with fans’ aspirations and romanticized visions of heroes, icons and

cultural ideals. Consequently, the connection between manliness and sexual andphysical power, fearlessness, and the ability to withstand and even seek out pain, isvisible in the construction of Latino boxers, regardless of the side of the border on

which they fight or reside. In the Latino imaginary, the characteristics Gutmannfound in The Children of Sanchez are inflated and overlaid on boxers who, at given

moments, become the embodiment of national and cultural pride and identity.

A Matter of Style and Manliness

Recently, John Gambadoro, a commentator on a radio talk show in Phoenix,Arizona, observed that De La Hoya ‘doesn’t fight like a Mexican’.[36] While such an

observation reeks of stereotyping, it is also a fairly constant dimension of theconstruction of De La Hoya. Indeed, one of the challenges that confront De La Hoyais the presumption that he is not Mexican enough, and the evidence for this is found

in several locations, including his boxing style. For Latino boxing fans this perception

204 F. Delgado


of De La Hoya is partly cultural (they have tended to prefer the brave puncher whotakes a hit to deliver one) and the legacy of the many great Latino champions who

have exhibited this style, such as Carlos Zarate, Bazooka Limon and Julio CesarChavez. Indeed, the reverse can be seen in the figure of Mexican flyweight champion

Miguel Canto, a great fighter known for his tactical and defensive skills but not asrevered as those mentioned because ‘he didn’t have a popular style’ among his

natural constituency.[37] A consequence of this preference is that when a fighter likeRoberto Duran claims ‘no mas’ (no more), the failure is not that he is beaten by a

superior fighter, but that he fears the beating and runs away from the fight. For manyboxing fans, particularly Latino and Latin American, fights that occur in the centre ofthe ring, with both opponents punching furiously until one is demonstrably and

violently beaten, are the true measure of greatness and, by extension, manliness.Boxing does, of course, allow for different tactics in order to survive and win: one

can be defensive, dance or box with style as opposed to being a puncher who can takea punch. Yet what is a preferred fighting style can vary across national, cultural and

ethnic boundaries. It is exactly those preferences, and his variance from them, thatbedevils Oscar De La Hoya, his masculine persona and his Latino identity. It is

presumed that Latino fighters will be aggressive, direct and unrelenting in the ring.De La Hoya’s conundrum is that he is neither a primitive male nor an unthinking

automaton willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of cultural preference, at least notto the degree that some fans require. Since his rise during the 1992 Olympics, De LaHoya has ‘floored boxing audiences with his fighting skills’.[38] Those skills enabled

De La Hoya to win an Olympic gold medal and become a professional worldchampion within five years, culminating in his being labelled the mythical ‘pound for

pound’ best fighter in the world.[39] Yet he never has been known as a puncher, afighter in the tradition of so many great Latin champions. Thus despite his success,

the ‘Golden Boy’ has critics who question both his masculinity and ‘Mexicanness’,and for Mexican American fight fans in particular the two are not unrelated.

Kawakami, who explains Julio Cesar Chavez’s appeal to Mexicans on both sides ofthe border, neatly sums up the dichotomies between the ‘Golden Boy’ and a ‘MexicanMan’:

Chavez was exactly what Mexicans loved in fighters – to hit you, he would allowyou to hit him with everything you had. Then he would batter you, body part bybody part, until, at the very end, you were swallowing your own blood and dizzyfrom the experience. To the people of those streets, to the immigrant Mexicans andthe fight fans of the Latino populace, Chavez stood for Mexican pride. WhenChavez bled, they believed, he bled for them.[40]

In contrast, Kawakami writes of the impact on De La Hoya of injuries sustained in a

fight with John John Molina:

He was nearly in shock – not from the punches, or from the hurt, but from thebumps on his face, from the temporary scarring, marring his ultimate treasure.



Never again, De La Hoya swore, I will never allow myself to get hit like that – to getmarked like that – ever again. His face was too precious to be a punching bag.[41]

This contrast nicely summarizes some of the reasons for Latino (particularly male;

females have always loved De La Hoya) antipathy toward De La Hoya and theattendant intimation that he is neither Latino enough nor man enough to command

their respect. So if De La Hoya was the fantasy of teenage girls and the dream ofmarketers seeking crossover value, he has not been the idol or hero of Latino boxing

fans who wanted a man, a man who was one of their own.Indeed, De La Hoya defines his own view of the boxer in ways that run counter to

the tradition of the puncher-fighter: ‘When you fight, it’s not all about being mean,

being that ugly tough-guy boxing image, because people are watching you. . . . I don’twant to be a fighter that has fought fifty fights, worked hard all his life, and has

nothing to show for it in the end. I am going to keep this smile.’ [42] While most ofus would laud De La Hoya’s intentions and his view of the professional boxer, it is

exactly such opinions that are not within the domain of preferred constructionsamong many fight fans, including Latinos. In some sense, the clinical and perhaps

even sterile approach that De La Hoya seems to adopt contrasts with the basic butpassionate personae that have been associated with the greatest of Latino and Latin

American fighters. In recent memory the closest parallel to De La Hoya’s approach tothe ring may be the Panamanian champion Alexis Arguello, but even he was stillinclined to have ‘wars’ with his opponents.

As a result of De La Hoya’s clinical and distant approach to fighting, there hasclearly been a struggle over identity and meaning among Latinos when considering

De La Hoya. While he is a star and a sporting icon, many Latinos remain critical ofhis style as a measurement of his Latino masculine identity. Fellow Southern

California fighter and nemesis Fernando Vargas calls De La Hoya a coward and ‘myson’ in repeated visits to the nationally syndicated Jim Rome radio programme.

During the January 2002 press conference for their forthcoming spring bout, Vargastaunted and attacked De La Hoya, claiming he was ‘not a real Mexican American’ andVargas’s supporters ‘began chanting, in Spanish, that De La Hoya was a sissy’.[43]

Such criticisms appear to trouble De La Hoya, who has remarked: ‘I might turn it insoon, depending on the fans. They would appreciate me, especially the younger ones,

if I looked more like a fighter. . . . The girls like me. Their boyfriends would like to seeme lose.’ [44]

This essay began as part of a larger, comparative project exploring popular cultureand Latino identity. However, having run across the aforementioned defaced cover

photo of De La Hoya, I was struck that the picture of an earnest, attractive Latinochampion (and would-be role model) should provoke and reflect such cultural

displeasure and disdain. Whoever that author was he (or she) neatly, if petulantly,summarized many Latinos’ perceptions of De La Hoya. The style and flair De LaHoya shows in the ring, even the middle-class values and detached approach with

which he discusses boxing, suggest that many Latinos will remain suspicious of his

206 F. Delgado


credibility both as a boxer and as a Mexican American male – though, ironically, hisrecent losses and return to the ring have helped his image.[45] This change in

perception is perhaps a reflection that the Latino boxing narrative must includesuffering and loss so that the manly characteristic of aguante (the ability to withstand

punishment and pain) can be revealed. Sports Illustrated’s boxing writer RichardHoffer remarked that in the aftermath of the first Julio Cesar Chavez fight ‘[t]he

perception that De La Hoya is concerned more with the aficionado’s appreciation ofskill than with the casual fan’s appetite for raw meat haunts him. It is this view of De

La Hoya, partly, that makes him unpopular with the Latin crowd, which prefers fightsto be proving grounds for machismo . . . instead of chess matches.’ [46]It appears that the approach of standing and punching that De La Hoya has

employed since then, which has coincided with losses to Felix Trinidad, ShaneMosley and Bernard Hopkins, is more consonant with fans’ expectations, but clearly

these tactics has not proved to be a successful formula in the ring, though ‘his defeat[to Trinidad] was compensated with his resurgences as a celebrity and sex

symbol’.[47] Moreover, in the face of multiple defeats, De La Hoya has receivedmuch more respect than when he methodically destroyed Chavez, the Mexican hero

and embodiment of machismo.Despite his recent shift in style and degree of success, it was during the period after

his significant victories over Chavez and other Latin fighters, when his fame was at itszenith, that De La Hoya’s boxing style became a matter of interest to those who notedhow it differed from a traditional Latin approach. As Hoffer noted at the time, De La

Hoya ‘is a champion whose fans sometimes jeer him for the prettiness of hisfighting’[48] and even among boxing pundits De La Hoya has been ‘suspect as a

pretty-boy dilettante’,[49] unwilling to commit himself totally to boxing, in and outof the ring. Therefore, despite the fact that for much of his career De La Hoya has had

nearly all the attributes to become a hometown champion ‘to some in his own townhe was no hero’.[50]

Questions of Class, Ethnicity and Masculinity

Since the articulation of machismo and Latino masculinity is related to underclassand marginalized life in the US, it is logical that many Latinos, particularly those

in his former East Los Angeles neighbourhood, would react negatively to De LaHoya’s public persona and his pursuit of mainstream economic and cultural

success. Appearances on talk shows and in advertisements on the Spanish-language television networks Univision and Telemundo notwithstanding, Ring

Magazine suggested De La Hoya has yet to ‘win the allegiance of male Hispanicfans. They still have a hard time rooting for a boxer who lives in silk-stocking Bel

Air, California, and seems way too comfortable in a tux.’ [51] One Los Angelesradio commentator suggested that ‘they [Latinos in East LA] believe he’s turned hisback on the barrio, feel he’s trying to live the white life. He belongs to a country club.

He plays golf.’ [52]



Beyond the confines of boxing, De La Hoya is a media figure who is described as ‘awell-groomed marketing machine’,[53] a ‘clean-cut champion’[54] armed with a

‘pretty-boy persona’.[55] Though ‘his skin is supermodel flawless, his eyes hypnoticand deep brown and his ebony hair fussed into a sleek do that seems to say ‘‘sexy yet

manly’’ ’,[56] such attributes do him little good in capturing the hearts of his people– the men of the Latino communities of the South-western US. And yet, ‘the women

in the crowd keen loudly and unfurl banners proposing marriage’.[57]Thus while De La Hoya still sees himself as part of his home community and

inextricably linked to Latinos, regardless of social class, his pursuit of crossoversuccess puts him in a difficult position. How does he seek access to the mainstream,whose media clearly recognize and articulate that he is Mexican American, while

maintaining his sense of authenticity and a connection with his community? Howdoes he, in the hip-hop vernacular, ‘keep it real’ when Latinos and members of other

ethnic groups, in their pursuit of mainstream success and acceptance, risk criticismfor being ‘too white’? It is clearly a struggle, particularly for De La Hoya, who

possesses ‘a devastating one-two punch for marketers – fast fists and sex appeal’,[58]and often finds himself ‘in a no-win situation’ in and out of the ring.[59] This

situation is not helped by his pursuit of leisure activities such as golf and theassociations of his moving to Bel Air rather than remaining among his people, which,

for some, mark him as more white than brown. To be fair, De La Hoya cannot beheld responsible for the paucity of Latino heroes or role models in the US, nor can hebe held responsible for narrow or intractable social constructions of what Latino

should be. Nonetheless, he has contributed in some measure to his predicament, ashe has made choices about his image and, especially, about the mediation of his

persona.No one can deny that Oscar De La Hoya is a supremely talented and brave pugilist.

He is also personable and ambitious. He is ‘Mexican by his blood, American in hisinclinations; barrio by birth, country club by preference . . . [who] will again be called

an aspiring white boy, charged with selling out and abandoning the Community’.[60]Yet it would seem that despite his roots and all his talent, Oscar De La Hoya – EastLA’s golden boy – will never be Mexican enough nor man enough to command the

respect and affection of his community. Such is the conundrum of attempting tobridge the space between vibrant ethnic communities and a persistently powerful

mainstream culture in the US. The mainstream is clearly a powerful magnet, but inits pull it can sever the relations between members of a community, particularly

within communities that persist on the margins of a given society and culture.

Conclusion

Despite boxing commentators describing De La Hoya as ‘the complete package’ whohas ‘obliterated some excellent opponents’,[61] he remains caught in a liminal space.For some, his greatness in the ring is matched by his social skills outside the ring. Yet

as he pursues mainstream success on his own terms, he finds himself caught in the

208 F. Delgado


web of associations that marginalized and ethnic communities make to defineauthentic identities. Kawakami and Price have taken stock of flaws in De La Hoya’s

image, some of which put him uncomfortably close to the person of Mike Tyson.[62]Nevertheless, De La Hoya is largely seen as a safe and positive Latino role model by

the mainstream Euro American media and the mainstream Latino media outlets inthe US. Perhaps it is because of his success and his quest for social acceptance that

Latinos question his Mexican-ness, his manliness. Whatever the case may be, it is afutile exercise to attempt to define one way of being a boxer, a man, a Mexican.

However, for media and cultural scholars, it is a boon to know that members ofcommunities inevitably, if unnecessarily, employ litmus tests to prove the worth andidentity of a man. It gives us something to explore as we inquire into the ways in

which we discursively create and attach meaning to identity.

Notes

[1] J. Sugden, Boxing and Society: An International Analysis (Manchester: Manchester UniversityPress, 1996), p.192.

[2] L. Wacquant, ‘The Social Logic of Boxing in Black Chicago: Toward a Sociology of Pugilism’,Sociology of Sport Journal, IX, 2 (1992), 234.

[3] V. Burstyn, The Rites of Men: Manhood, Politics, and the Culture of Sport (Toronto: Universityof Toronto Press, 1999), p.166.

[4] J.C. Oates, On Boxing (Hopewell, VA: The Ecco Press, 1994), p.9.[5] J.M. Sloop, ‘Mike Tyson and the Perils of Discursive Constraints: Boxing, Race, and the

Assumption of Guilt’, in Aaron Baker and Todd Boyd (eds.), Out of Bounds: Sports, Media,and the Politics of Identity (Indianapolis, IN: University of Indiana Press, 1997), p.108.

[6] Ibid., p.122.[7] G. Rodriguez, ‘Boxing and Masculinity: The History and (Her)story of Oscar de la Hoya’, in

Michelle Habell-Pallan and Mary Romero (eds.), Latino/a Popular Culture (New York: NewYork University Press, 2002), pp.256–62.

[8] T. Kawakami, Golden Boy: The Fame, Money, and Mystery of Oscar De La Hoya (Kansas City,MO: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 1999), p.17.

[9] B.M. Johnson, ‘The Great Hispanic Hope – for Advertisers’, Business Week, 15 Feb. 1993), 122.See also N. Mailer, ‘Street Fighting Man’, Harper’s Bazaar, June 1996, 136–9, 150 for evidenceof De La Hoya’s appeal to non-Latino audiences and, by extension, marketers and advertisers.

[10] G. Rodriguez, ‘Saving Face, Place and Race: Oscar de la Hoya the All American Dreams of USBoxing’, in John Bloom and Michael Nevin Willard (eds.), Sport Matters: Race, Recreation andCulture (New York: New York University Press, 2002), p.289.

[11] Kawakami, Golden Boy, pp.18–19.[12] Ibid., p.19.[13] T. Miller, Sportsex (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2001), p.9.[14] M.A. Messner, M. Dunbar and D. Hunt, ‘The Televised Sports Manhood Formula’, Journal of

Sport and Social Issues, 24 (2000), 392.[15] R.W. Connell, Masculinities (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995). See also H. Brod and M.

Kaufman (eds.), Theorizing Masculinities (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1994); andM.S. Kimmel, ‘Rethinking ‘‘Masculinity’’: New Directions in Research’, in Michael Kaufman(ed.), Beyond Patriarchy: Essays by Men on Pleasure, Power, and Change (Toronto: OxfordUniversity Press, 1987), pp.235–49.



[16] C. Cheng, ‘Marginalized Masculinities and Hegemonic Masculinities: An Introduction’,Journal of Men’s Studies, VII, 3 (1999), 295–315.

[17] M. Donaldson, ‘What is Hegemonic Masculinity?’, Theory and Society, XXII (1993), 646.[18] M.A. Messner, Power at Play: Sports and the Problem of Masculinity (Boston, MA: Beacon

Press, 1992) and N. Trujillo, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity on the Mound: Media Representationsof Nolan Ryan and American Sports Culture’, Critical Studies in Mass Communication, VIII, 3(1991), 290–308.

[19] Trujillo, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity’, 293.[20] Ibid., 293.[21] D. Kellner, ‘Sports, Media Culture and Race – Some Reflections on Michael Jordan’, Sociology

of Sport Journal, XIII, 4 (1996), 462.[22] Trujillo, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity’, 291.[23] Miller, Sportsex, p.10.[24] R. Hanke, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity in thirtysomething’, Critical Studies in Mass Communica-

tion, VII, 3 (Sep. 1990), 231–48.[25] Ibid., 245.[26] R. Hanke, ‘Theorizing Masculinity with/in the Media’, Communication Theory, VIII, 2 (May

1998), 183–203.[27] See R. Gonzalez (ed.), Muy Macho: Latino Men Confront Their Manhood (New York: Anchor

Books/Doubleday, 1996); and J.E. Munoz, Disidentifications: Queers of Color and thePerformance of Politics (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1999).

[28] M. Kriegel, ‘The Great (Almost) White Hope’, Esquire, Nov. 1996, 79.[29] Ibid., 93.[30] See M. Donaldson, ‘What is Hegemonic Masculinity?’; and C. Cheng, ‘Marginalized

Masculinities’.[31] A. Sandoval-Sanchez, ‘Latinos and Cultural Exchange: De-Facing Mainstream Magazine

Covers: The New Faces of Latino/a Transnational and Transcultural Celebrities’, Encrucijada/Crossroads, I, 1 (2003), 13. My colleague Dr Bernadette Calafell of Syracuse Universityexplains in a personal communication that the term papi chulo ‘has been used in popular presssuch as Latina magazine to refer to the ideal Latino man – well-rounded, intelligent,successful, and good looking – our finest man. On the other hand it has also had negativeconnotations that make it synonymous with being a Casanova or with machismo.’

[32] M.C. Guttmann, The Meanings of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City (Berkeley, CA:University of California Press, 1996), p.227.

[33] O. Lewis, The Children of Sanchez: Autobiography of a Mexican Family (New York: RandomHouse, 1961).

[34] A. Rivera, ‘Remembrance and Forgetting: Chicano Masculinity on the Border’, Latino StudiesJournal, VIII, 1 (1997), 37.

[35] M. Baca Zinn, ‘Chicano Men and Masculinity’, Journal of Ethnic Studies, X, 1 (1982), 29–44.[36] Gambo and Ash Show, KGME Radio, 29 Jan. 2002.[37] S. Farhood, ‘Is Chavez the Best Mexican Fighter Ever?’ Ring Magazine, Aug. 1990, 36.[38] L. Rivera, ‘Amor, Amor, Oscar De La Hoya Sings Songs of Love’, Latina, Feb. 2000, 78.[39] N. Collins, ‘Ringside,’ Ring Magazine, April 1998, 4.[40] Kawakami, ‘Golden Boy’, p.220.[41] Ibid., p.156.[42] R. Velazquez, ‘Golden Boy’, Hispanic, Oct. 1995, 30.[43] B. Plaschke, ‘They’re Ready to Rumble and Roar’, Los Angeles Times, 17 Jan. 2002, Pt. 4, 1.[44] Mailer, ‘Street Fighting Man’, 150.[45] R. Hoffer, ‘L.A. Glory’, Sports Illustrated, 26 June 2000, 54–6.[46] R. Hoffer, ‘Cold-blooded’, Sports Illustrated, 17 June 1996, 70–3.

210 F. Delgado


[47] Sandoval-Sanchez, ‘Latinos and Cultural Exchange’, 13.[48] R. Hoffer, ‘The Right Stuff’, Sports Illustrated, 22 Feb. 1997, 54.[49] R. Hoffer, ‘The Pugilist and the Professor’, Sports Illustrated, 10 June 1996, 80.[50] A. Tresniowski and J. Schnauffer, ‘Moving on up’, People Weekly, 20 Jan. 1997, 93.[51] I. Goldman, ‘Exclusive Interview with Oscar De La Hoya’, Ring Magazine, Dec. 1998, 37.[52] Tresniowski and Schnauffer, ‘Moving on up’, 94.[53] R. Hoffer, ‘Class Dismissed’, Sports Illustrated, 27 Sep. 1999, 57.[54] H.J. Lalli, ‘Showcase: The Boxer’, The New Yorker, 9 Jan. 1995, 52.[55] R. Hoffer, ‘Oscar Time’, Sports Illustrated, 21 April 1997, 71.[56] L. Ali, ‘He’s Singing in the Ring’, Newsweek, 23 Oct. 2000, 78.[57] R. Hoffer, ‘Oscar Worthy’, Sports Illustrated, 22 Sep. 1997, 44.[58] J. Reingold, ‘I Can Lift the Name of Boxing’, Business Week, 7 July 1997, 115.[59] Goldman, ‘Exclusive Interview’, 36.[60] Kriegel, ‘The Great (Almost) White Hope’, 75.[61] T. Graham, ‘The Pound-for-Pound King!’ Ring Magazine, April 1998, 40, 41.[62] Kawakami, Golden Boy; and S.L. Price, ‘He Says he’s a Gladiator. . .,’ Sports Illustrated (19 June

2000), 80–86, 89–90, 92.



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