Reporting Red Hook

It’s a clear and cool August morning, and a pickup match is underway at the Red Hook Recreation Center soccer field.  Dressed in mix-matched t-shirts and shorts, employees of the Queen Marie Italian Restaurant on Court Street face off against workers for a local construction firm.  As the game nears its end, players hurl insults and call out victory cries in Spanish.  The restaurant workers win, 5-3.  

On the sidelines, men hang blue plastic tarps over grills and picnic tables while women husk corn and slice limes.  Hand-painted signs advertise tacos, empanadas, ceviche and horchata. Smells begin to emerge—smoldering charcoal, deep-fried starches, grilling meat. The scene has a very improvised feel, and yet, nothing about it is new. “Some of them have been here for 35 years,” according to Waldemar Ceballos, Vice President of the Guatemala Soccer League.  “They are here every weekend in the summers.”  Originally, the food vendors came because the soccer players were there, but now it seems that the players are here, at least in part, for the food. “Everybody comes to play and eat,” says Ceballos.

Unlike the players in the early-morning pickup match, members of the Guatemala Soccer League wear team uniforms, and their games are refereed. The league has been around since 1974, and was, according to Ceballos, the first Latino soccer league in the city. “It’s just for fun, not professional,” he says, though a few players claim to have played professionally in their home countries.  Ceballos himself is originally from Guatemala—he emigrated in 1974 to escape his country’s long civil war—but the league’s players are from all over the world.  In the early days, almost all the players were Hispanic; now a wider variety of nationalities are represented. Most teams have a predominant ethnic identity that sometimes doubles as a team name, but they’re all mixed.

Earlier this summer, the Parks Department informed the league’s beloved Latin food vendors that their temporary permits, expiring September 8^th, would not be renewed.  This sparked the fury of adoring locals and made waves among foodies citywide.  Sen. Chuck Schumer even stepped in, calling the vendors a “Brooklyn treasure,” and asking the department to let the vendors remain. Parks officials agreed to allow the stalls to stay open until the end of this season—October 28^th—after which the city will open bidding on concessions and the vendors will have to compete for the right to sell their delectable goods.  Even this uneasy respite was short-lived. On August 8th the Department of Health got involved, issuing a list of requirements that the vendors say could prove too expensive to implement.

Passions run high and speculation is rampant in the park.  “They want to bring in big chains so they can get their tax money” said Ceballos.  “This is going to be a problem for our players.”

As the games get underway, representatives from the health department wander from stall to stall, opening and closing coolers, poking under aluminum foil covers, asking questions and taking notes.

The first official match of the day is played between Team Yugoslavia, comprised of immigrants from the Balkan countries, and Club Deportivo, which is “about half Spanish and half North African,” according to Sami Ameur, a Deportivo player who came to Brooklyn from Algeria four years ago.  Ameur says he’s always been a fan of the Spanish football team Real Madrid, but now that he lives in the U.S., he follows American football and baseball more than soccer.  “I’m a Yankees fan,” he says.

Yugoslavia scores the first goal in game one, but the end result is a win for Club Deportivo.  The next match, between Mexican and Egyptian teams, is somewhat tense.  “There’s a lot of resentment on the part of the Egyptian team because the referees are mostly Hispanic,” a fan explains. The match ends with a Mexican victory but the hint of tension dissipates as Ecuadorian and Salvadorian players take the field.  The players seem to appreciate the inter-ethnic camaraderie that the league engenders. “That’s the thing about football,” says Ernest Garcia, a former Guatemala League player who is watching from the crowded stands. “Like they say at the World Cup, ‘one round ball unites the world.’”

Though the games enthrall audiences, most people seem to have come for the food.  “I’m from California, and I’ve been really struggling to find good Mexican food, so a friend told me to come here,” says Boerum Hill resident Chris Michael.  “You gotta try the pupusas—second blue tent from the left,” Ceballos advises.

The food vendors’ saga seems likely to have a happy ending.  With lines up to 40-people long waiting for huaraches, the vendors have ample support in the community. After the barrage of questions, Health Department representatives offer a few simple tips and move onto the next stand.  According to an official statement, “The Health Department is working with the Department of Parks and Recreation and Red Hook food vendors to help assure the safety of the food prepared and sold at the Red Hook soccer fields.”

“We are okay!” said Reina Carrillo, while flipping tortillas at her family’s stand. “She asked us some questions, but we had no violations, no nothing.  It’s okay for now, but we don’t know what will happen next year.”