Asian Kids in the Little League World Series

“She’s too fragile!”

I have heard this a number of times from Asian parents as an explanation why they don’t let their daughters play sports.   I’m glad that the Filipino parents of Asian-Canadian Katie Reyes didn’t feel that way.   Katie is one of two girls who played in the Little League World Series. As filamako.com points out, she hasn’t just shown up, but she has been making an impact, breaking barriers as the first girl to hit a gamewinner as Canada beat Germany 14-13.

While Canada didn’t make it to the finals, the championship game definitely had Asian kids in it. The final two teams were from Chula Vista, California and from Taipei, Taiwan. The Chula Vista team, being from a heavily Filipino city that we have talked about before, had at least one Filipino player, as Bradley Roberto definitely looks  Filipino.  He’s the kid in the video who Conan gives a hard time regarding his ring. It was good to see Asians competing against them, particularly Asians who had no hint of cheating. Taiwan, a perennial challenger, was characterized by the announcers, as quick, excellent on defense, and opportunistic, scoring many points on unearned runs. The American team was characterized as being powerful, hitting many home runs. How stereotypical!  Ironically, during the first part of the game, Taiwan was leading, scoring by hitting home runs. The American Team didn’t have any home runs at that point. The lead was not to last as Chula Vista team eventually pulled ahead to win 6-3.

I’m not going to discuss (at least in this post) whether or not the Little League World Series exploits kids. Whether or not that’s true, it was good to see Asian, Asian-Canadian, and Asian-American kids there, breaking down stereotypes hit by hit.
(hat tip to Kristian at www.filamako.com for the story idea.)