On Jan. 28, the Fowler Museum at UCLA will open “Pelotas Oaxaqueñas/Oaxacan Ball Games: Photographs by Leopoldo Peña.” The exhibition features 38 black-and-white images of traditional team sports played by Oaxacan expatriates in California taken from 2011 to 2016.

In these images, Peña captured discrete moments that frame the event – sudden movements of arms arcing to reach the ball; pauses in action as players gather their strength; and families and friends watching the game from the sidelines – a testament to how the game creates and reinforces communal ties.

Nearly 150,000 people of Oaxacan ancestry currently reside in California. Since the 1980s, one way they have maintained cultural ties to their homeland is by playing traditional games including “pelota mixteca,” or “Mixtec-style ball,” and “pelota de esponja,” or “sponge ball.”

Pelota mixteca has a history and network in central and southern California going back to the 1980s. Based in Fresno, the Asociación de la Pelota Mixteca de California Central organizes teams and tournaments in San Jose, Monterey, Oxnard, Santa Barbara, San Diego and San Fernando.

“Pelotas Oaxaqueñas offers a look at the often invisible and humane side of immigration,” Peña said. “People playing, improvising and sharing a cultural space.”

Peña was born in Michoacán, Mexico and has lived in Los Angeles since 1992. A Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at University of California, Irvine, his photography has been featured in journals and newspapers in California and Mexico, including Boom California, Streetnotes, La Jornada, La Opinión and El Tequio.

The Fowler Museum is located at 308 Charles E. Young Drive N. For information, visit fowler.ucla.edu.