A Home on the Field by Paul Cuadros

A Home on the Field
The Story of Los Jets!

A Home on the Field, tells the poignant true story of the Jets, a high school soccer team made up of Latino immigrant kids in the rural South who shocked the soccer world in North Carolina and made it to the state championship finals in just three seasons.
Siler City, North Carolina, was a small sleepy town located in the heart of North Carolina and home to two poultry processing plants. It was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone and their grandfather. People had a connection with each other dating back for centuries.
In the early 1990s, change began to come to Siler City. A new group of people was seen walking its sidewalks. The poultry processing industry, the largest industry in the county, began to recruit and attract Latino immigrants, mostly from Mexico, to come and work in the chicken plants. In a short time, a steady migration of workers and their families established Siler City as their new home. But as the population of Latinos grew, the long-time residents of Siler City became confused, angry, and disturbed by the demographic change. The sorest point was the schools were rapidly being transformed with the enrollment of more and more Latino children. People felt the Latinos were taking over.

Finally, the county commissioners sent a letter to the local office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service demanding that the illegal immigrant workers and their families be taken away. The letter opened the door for a nasty school board meeting where parents called for the Spanish-speaking Latino children to be placed in their own school. White parents began fleeing the local schools for other predominantly white schools in other parts of the county including a charter school. With mounting criticism of their letter to the INS, county commissioners took a fact finding trip to Mexico and discovered that the issue of illegal immigration was more complex and broader than their response could solve. They decided to work with the Latino community and help them assimilate. In response to this turn around, members of the local Klu Klux Klan organized an anti-immigrant rally that featured David Duke that drew hundreds of people composed of supporters and non-supporters.

At the same time, Latino students at Jordan-Matthews High School had begged their school to form a soccer team but they were turned down time and again. It seemed that a line had been drawn against the Latino community at the football field. But journalist Paul Cuadros took up their cause and together they formed a winning program. Along the way, the Jets had to endure all the obstacles that plague immigrant kids, from dropping out to feelings of alienation, from prejudice against them to pressure from their families to work instead of play, to being in the country illegally. Coach Cuadros had to keep the players in school, guide them through the pitfalls of life here in the United States, and forge them into a winning program.

A Home on the Field takes you into the unique world of millions of Latino immigrants who labor in the shadows in America and tells their story from the inside. You will meet memorable characters that struggle to make America their new home including following the harrowing adventures of one player who must cross the border to make it back in time to play on the team. The American dreams of the players will become your dreams as they love, play, win and lose, and fight their way to victory and a place in their community.

The story of A Home on the Field and the Jets is America’s story as it comes to grips with how to deal with the migration of Latino immigrants both legal and illegal. It shows how one community and one team can come together on the controversial subject of immigration and forge a new history and identity.