When Mexicans Could Play BallWinner, Al Lowman Memorial Prize, Texas State Historical Association, 2014 In 1939, a team of short, scrappy kids from a vocational school established specifically for Mexican Americans became the high school basketball champions of San Antonio, Texas. Their win, and the ensuing riot it caused, took place against a backdrop of shifting and conflicted attitudes toward Mexican Americans and American nationalism in the WWII era. Only when the Mexicans