Kearney Public Library and UNK-History Department welcome you to the History Brown Bag lunch series Wednesday, August 10 from noon-1:00 pm. Lina Homberger Cordia will present Invisible Futboleras: Gender, Nationalism, and Sport in Mexico and the World in the Early 1970s.
In 1970, the Mexican national women’s soccer team quietly made history as the only “Third World” participants in an inaugural women’s World Cup competition in Italy. The following year, in 1971, Mexico became the first Global South nation to host a women’s World Cup, underlining the significance of the region’s sporting development and its use of sport in constructing a gendered nationalism. Touting their team of female finalists, Mexican statesmen used the spectacle of a women’s World Cup to project an image of itself on the world stage as a symbol of progress and modernity. These sporting events, though “unofficial,” highlight the inherently political and gendered nature of Cold War international sporting events and are at the center of a history that places Mexico on a global field. Overall, Mexico serves as an exemplar of Latin American and Third World representation during the Cold War, where political rivalries between the First, Second, and Third worlds played out through sport.
Lina Homberger Cordia is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. She graduated from UNK with a Master of Arts in History in 2017, and her work has been published in the Oregon Historical Quarterly. Her current research takes an interdisciplinary approach to twentieth-century Mexican history, the history of the global Cold War, and women and gender in sport.
This program is free and open to the public so bring your lunch and learn! This collaborative program is presented by UNK-History Department, and the Kearney Public Library. Mark your calendars for this ongoing series on September 14 with a presentation by Dr. Nathan Tye.