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Podcast: New Books in Latino Studies
Episode: Kat D. Williams, "Isabel 'Lefty' Alvarez: The Improbable Life of a Cuban American Baseball Star" (U Nebraska Press, 2020)
Description: For many of its participants, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) offered them an opportunity to change their lives, yet few were as transformed as that of Isabel “Lefty” Alvarez. As Kat D. Williams details in Isabel “Lefty” Alvarez: The Improbable Life of a Cuban-American Baseball Star (University of Nebraska Press, 2020), playing in the league gave her the chance for a new start in a different country. Williams highlights the role Lefty’s mother María played in encouraging her to take up sports as a way of escaping their family’s slide into poverty. Lefty’s involvement with baseball coi...