Ravi Patel

Anthropology, Ethnography 1

26 May 2009

Laker Game at Julio’s Pizza

            During the NBA season for the past three years, my family watches every Laker game at a sports bar in Artesia, California.  The sports bar has a hardcore Los Angeles Lakers theme. There is a ball in a glass case by the bar signed by the 2007 Los Angeles Lakers team. Also there is a neon Lakers jersey with the number “8” on it - Kobe Bryant’s old jersey number.  The majority of the public to be seen at this sports bar named “Julio’s Pizza” would be Indians. My family including my cousins, aunts, uncles, and other relative come to this sports bar every Laker game day. As an anthropologist, I want to study this Lakers game-watching ritual of watching a Laker game with Indian’s at a sports bar and why are the men and women separated. To get a better understand of this ritual I will have to explore the element of gender participation of this ritual. Why are the women and children away from having a family experience of watching the game with the husband? Why are the husbands not with the family eating pizza? Are there any exceptions to the rule of were men and women sit? I also want to study the predominance of ethnic Indians in this sports bar, exploring why members of my family prefer to go here than anywhere else.

            Men and women sit in different locations because of the environment of the family sports bar; there is a bar on one side and a sit down restaurant on the other. Jeremy MacClenny, author of the book “Exotic No More” reflects on the theory that men and woman came together as a pair; he writes, “By Kindergarten, most schoolchildren know that people come, like the animals in Noah’s ark, in pairs—boys and girls—and they easily classify both themselves and everyone else they know into this binary system” (pg.167). Though men and women are classified as two different types of gender with different characteristics they still have a bond of being with each other. However if men and women had the chance to be away from each other they would take it in order to have a little freedom. MacClenny puts things into perspective that men and woman came together in pairs. What MacClenny does not expand on is, are men and woman always with each other? A woman, Jamiee was explaining to me about how she like to hang out with the ladies, she tells me, “well being married for 4 years is hard but when you get the chance to be away from that and just hang out with the girls, it’s nice” (Jamiee 2009).

            With this in mind I found it strange to see men and women separated at this restaurant and no one is telling the women that they cannot come over to the bar or vice versa. Men are the majority at the bar, and it has to do with a gender personality where men just like watching sports more at the bar, in comparison to women. Jamiee also explained to me that, “Woman doesn’t drink in public either because they are the designated driver back home, they don’t drink alcohol, or they don’t like to drink in public because of religious beliefs” (Jamiee 2009). So woman would rather enjoy the game on the restaurant side where alcohol is not served.

At the sports bar men and/or the husbands would be drinking alcohol, snacking on peanuts or eating pizza while watching the latest game on television. One of the customers, Nilesh, was talking to me about how they enjoy each others company.  I asked, “Don’t you like it if you were at home and relaxing with your friends?” Nilesh responded in detail, “See, that’s the thing, when we are at home, the home owner, has to give hospitality and can’t relax with the guys.  It creates this unbalanced field of host and guest” (Nilesh 2009). When men want to hang out to watch the game they don’t want one of the guys to be a host and the rest a guest. They prefer it to be that all of the men when hanging out together and are near alcohol relaxing together and do nothing but watch the game. The one person that is doing something would be the bar tender. Another customer, Ricky, at the bar was explaining why he likes to be relaxed, “well it could be the fact that I feel the alcohol buzz, but the reason is that it feels good to get away from things back home, and to have space from your family is a good thing”(Ricky 2009).

An interesting question popped in my head as I thought to myself, ‘So does that mean that when the men go to this bar that they are now single?’ The book “Investigating Culture” by Carol Delaney explore the aspect of a situation when men and woman don’t socialize, Delaney uses an assertion from Okin (1989: 161), “For most women and children divorce means precipitous downward mobility- both economically and socially” (pg.197). Okin is elucidating on how men and woman after they break up don’t go to social outings as much together or even seen at social outings as much. As I was talking to the customers I noticed that they still acknowledged that their wives and children where present and did not completely acted single. So the men don’t want to be single or act single they acted like this at the bar because men don’t want to leave the family they just want time alone.

            On the other hand the wives of the men and or the ladies would be at the restaurant side. So I felt to get full understanding of these separations between genders, and why the wife isn’t watching the game at the bar. So I decided to go over to talk to them. As I went up to any random person and talked to them about this separation, Danisha one of the wives helped me understand that the wives simple don’t want to watch the game at the bar. Also Krishna, explained to me, “I would feel uncomfortable when being around a group of men even though my husband is there” (Krishna 2009). So what they would do is be with their child and/or just hanging out with the other wife’s and ordering some pizza and they would talk about random topics. Also there is another television set in the restaurant side of the sport bar.

The majority of the people in this restaurant are of Indian ethnicity; the reason for this is because it is located in the town of Artesia California, a place known to be also called “Little India”. Even though this restaurant is an Italian pizza place, they still have a majority of Indians. I asked Darshan, a man who seems to be in his late 40, “Why is this place so popular for Indians to come and watch the game.” Darshan responded with a simple answer, “well kid, I have lived in this town for 15 years and this is the only sports bar in Artesia that is clean, and the only one that has an Indian owner who is probable related to the customers” (Darshan 2009). So from Darshan I figured that Indians would have a more relax full time when there are around relatives. The feeling of being around relative or friend is a bond that was made when this ritual started. To further explore my finding I looked in the article “The Great American Football” written by Douglas and Foley which represent a great picture of how when the students are seated for the rally in which they space they are distributed in. The text reads, “It was all-graded, with the older, most prominent students taking the center seats, thus signaling their status and loyalty. Younger first-years and second-years student sat next to the leaders of the school activities” (pg. 29). This displays that people are comfortable when they are around their kind—gender, ethnicity. In the article students sit with other student with the same grade level. At the bar men sit with other men, a woman sits with the other woman.

            Well now I understood the setting of this ritual, the only thing now was how this ritual still exists? I ask the bar tender a few questions to understand his views. Apparently, the bar tender for the night I went to Julio’s Pizza restaurant, was also the Co-owner. He goes by as Tech, he is a hard core Laker fan, and has been since he was a young child. Tech was explaining to me, that many of the people who come to his sports bar are Laker fans, even though he has had a few other people who like different teams. This was very curious to me that why are they Laker fan? Is it because they have won 29 champion chips, and have Kobe Bryant as there start player but then that just makes Laker fans just followers of a great franchise. Tech was elucidating to me that he is a fan because his first game he watched as a kid was the Los Angeles Lakers game against the Sacramento Kings. So people in California start to like the Lakers because they probably had a first experience as child watching the Laker games. However that is not the case for all of the fans as some of the customer’s explained, “my dad liked the Lakers and I adopted that trait” (Ricky 2009) or “Lakers are strong franchises and I am a fan because they are good” (Darshan 2009). In conclusion, if anyone is born in California or even raised as a little kid the possibility of being a Laker fan is high.

            This ritual has much practice since Julio’s Pizza opened up four years ago, as you walk in you see a sign that reads “Happy Hour every Laker game.” So I figured I would analyze how the men and woman both put up with coming to this bar every game day. Well Danisha was explaining to me, “Well we ladies go to the mall, movies, or take the kids out for a day before we come to Julio’s. That way it’s a nice day for the family. Also we can relax and eat pizza” (Danisha 2009). This explains how the ritual was practiced for so long. It had to do with the fact that men an woman would hang out with their families and then come to this sports bar and relax. This ritual was meant to be a place where men and women watch the Laker game at Julio’s Pizza. This ritual never had a purpose of having a division of were men and women sit in this sports bar. The explanation for this setting style is men are comfortable at the bar with other men that drink alcohol and women want to be away from alcohol and enjoy the game with other women and kids. In conclusion, this Laker game watching ritual is another representation of space, kinship, and gender that all play a role in continuing this ritual.

 

Bibliography

1.      Interview Jamie. On May 17 2009. (Jamiee 2009)

2.      Interview Nilesh. On May 17 2009. (Nilesh 2009)

3.      Interview Ricky. On May 17 2009. (Ricky 2009)

4.      Interview Danisha. On May 17 2009. (Danisha 2009)

5.      Interview Krishna. On May 17 2009. (Krishna 2009)

6.      Interview  Darshan. On May 17 2009. (Darshan 2009)

7.      Interview Tech. On May 17 2009. (Tech 2009)

8.      Delaney, Carol. Investigating Culture. Blackwell Pubishling, 2004.

9.      MacClancy, Jeremy. Exotic No More. The University of Chicago Press, 2002.

10.  Douglasand Foley, "The Great American Football Ritual". Learning Capitalist Culture.