Serving Up a Conflict

By Nathan Thornburgh / Danbury

The staid townspeople of Danbury, Conn., have diagnosed a cancer on their city's body politic. Formerly upstanding houses have degenerated, residents say, into raucous dens of illegal alcohol sales, gambling, even prostitution. "This used to be a nice place to live," laments schoolteacher Corlis Ward, who has been on the same quiet street for 30 years. "It's sad, but now I'm thinking about moving."

What's to blame for the moral rot? It's not drug dealing or gang wars. In Danbury the vice, according to local officials and longtime residents, is volleyball. Specifically, "ecuavolley," a form of the game so beloved in Ecuador that when Ecuadorians began migrating en masse to this small working-class New England city, they built backyard courts all over town, some big enough to accommodate up to 150 fans and players.

Neighbors complain that the games are overrunning residential areas--and that some organizers are running prostitution rings on the side. The Ecuadorians deny such charges, defending what they call harmless relaxation after a hard day's labor. "This is an overreaction about other issues," says Wilson Hernandez, a leader in the Ecuadorian community. "Volleyball is just the excuse."

As Hispanic immigrants spread beyond their strongholds in New York, California and Texas, summer sports--and the spectators that cluster around them--are turning up the heat on already simmering ethnic and class tensions, according to Princeton University sociologist Douglas Massey. "There are complaints in parks and fields all across America. Volleyball just happens to be the local version in Danbury," he says. "But if you know anything about Latin cultures, this is pretty innocent stuff. They bring their families. The men aren't getting totally drunk because, really, they are there for the sports."

Danbury's problems, of course, go deeper than that particular game. Over the past decade, the number of undocumented workers, many drawn to the city by landscaping or construction jobs in more affluent surrounding towns, has swelled to as much as 20% of its population. The influx, officials say, has also led to overstuffed apartment buildings, milling crowds of day laborers and legions of uninsured patients.

Volleyball, however, is the biggest sticking point. Mayor Mark Boughton tried--and failed--to get local cops deputized as federal immigration agents, but he's still urging the passage of an ordinance banning "repetitive outdoor group activities." Boughton insists that the ordinance is crafted broadly enough to prevent rowdy Wiffle-ball games, for example, and not just volleyball. "We're not singling out Ecuadorians or immigrants in general," he says. "It's the illegal immigration that is hurting our town."

The city has promised to add to the number of volleyball courts in local Rogers Park, but it's not always easy to create venues that meet the discriminating standards of the Ecuadorians. Two years ago, when Powderhorn Park in southern Minneapolis, Minn., had crowds of a hundred or so Ecuadorians playing impromptu games on delicate parkland, the city tried to build its way out of the problem. "We put up half a dozen sand courts, but it turns out they like to play on harder surfaces," recalls Elena Gaarder of the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association. "Then we cracked down on alcohol in the park. Now nobody shows up." It turns out that ecuavolley without beer is like, well, baseball without beer.

On a recent summer evening, a gathering crowd of hinchas (fans) lined a backyard court across the street from Ward's house in Danbury, swapping jokes in Spanish and cheering on the players. The neighborhood eyesores were in plain sight: the 30-ft. fence around the court, the lights for night games, the overflowing Dumpster out front, the cars parked on the lawn.

On the court, however, it's all about the volleyball. The Ecuadorian variant is played three on three, with a higher net and harder ball, but the competitive spirit is the same. After an hour-long battle, a day laborer named Omar and two brothers nicknamed Los Tigres scratch out a tiebreaker victory. Still flush with success and oblivious to a knee wound he picked up on the hard clay court, Omar sits down and sips on a Gatorade. "Ecuadorian people work hard in this country," he says. "Playing volleyball is just our way of surviving."