Zoot Suit Riots
Primary Content: The Americans: Reconstruction to the 21st Century
Images as Cited.
http://www.chicano.ucla.edu/center/events/Sleepy_Lagoon/SleepyLagCol.htm
The Zoot-Suit Riots
1943
• What was
happening in
the country
during the
1940s?
• Racial
Tension filled
America
during the
1940s.
Background
 Japanese-Americans
were the target of
terrorist acts.
 Japanese people
were assigned to
American
concentration camps.
• Shortage of labor in
California during the
1940s.
Who’s going to work?
Bracero Program:
200,000 MexicanAmericans were sent
to LA in 1943, to
work
• The U.S. forced
rationing (to share).
Goods such as wool,
gas, butter, and
sugar were limited.
• The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots that
erupted in Los Angeles, California during
World War II, between sailors and soldiers
stationed in the city and Hispanic youths, who
were recognizable by the zoot suits they
favored.
http://www.chicano.ucla.edu/center/events/Sleepy_Lagoon/SleepyLagCol.htm
• While Mexican Americans were mostly
beaten, African American and Filipino
American youths were also targeted.
http://www.library.ucla.edu/special/scweb/slwar11.htm
• The riots began in Los Angeles, amidst
a period of rising racial tensions
between American servicemen
stationed in southern California and the
Los Angeles’ Chicano community.
http://www.picturehistory.com/find/p/13038/mcms.html
• Many of the tensions between the Chicano
community and the sailors existed
because the servicemen walked through
Chicano neighborhoods on the way back
to their barracks after nights of drinking.
http://www.library.ucla.edu/special/scweb/slwar14.htm
• The discrimination against the Chicano
minority community was compounded
by robberies and fights during these
drunken interactions.
http://www.library.ucla.edu/special/scweb/slwar12.htm
• In July 1942, a group of Hispanic
youths fought back against the police
who attempted to break up a street
corner gambling game.
• In October 1942, over 600 Chicano
youth were arrested, and dozens
charged, in the killing of Jose Diaz in a
supposed gang brawl at the Sleepy
Lagoon reservoir.
Jose Diaz
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/zoot/eng_peopleevents/e_murder.html
Henry Leyvas arrested and convicted
in a police round-up for the murder ofJose Diaz.
Later, the courts would reverse his conviction.
• This led to a court trial whose
convictions were later overturned.
During the case, sensationalist press
accounts (yellow journalism) inflamed
hostility towards young Chicanos.
http://www.calstatela.edu/orgs/mecha/zoot-suit.htm
• The following year, clashes between
white servicemen and Hispanic youths
increased. In May 1943, sailors claimed
that “zoot suiters” stabbed a sailor, and
they retaliated by beating young
Hispanics leaving a local dance.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/zoot/eng_timeline/timeline2.html
• On May 31, 1943, a group of white sailors on
leave clashed with a group of young Hispanics
in the downtown area. One sailor, Joe Dacy
Coleman, was badly injured. In response, 50
white sailors gathered and headed out to
downtown and East Los Angeles, which was
the center of the Hispanic community.
http://www.1947project.com/blog?from=245
• The sailors attacked young people,
especially targeting males in “zoot suits.”
In many instances, the police intervened
by arresting Hispanic youths for
disturbing the peace. The police left the
sailors to the military justice system.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/zoot/eng_timeline/timeline2.html
• The violence escalated over the ensuing
days. Thousands of servicemen joined
the attack. Many African Americans
assisted the Chicano community by
providing vehicles and weapons to fight
back against the Caucasian sailors.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/zoot/eng_peopleevents/e_murder.html
• Several hundred “pachucos” (as the
young Hispanic men were known) and
nine sailors were arrested as a result of
the fighting that occurred over the next
few days.
http://www.calstatela.edu/orgs/mecha/zoot-suit.htm
•
An eyewitness to the attacks, journalist Carey McWilliams, described
the scene as follows.
“Marching through the streets of downtown Los Angeles,
a mob of several thousand soldiers, sailors, and civilians,
proceeded to beat up every zoot suiter they could find.
Pushing its way into the important motion picture
theaters, the mob ordered the management to turn on
the house lights and then ran up and down the aisles
dragging Mexicans out of their seats. Streetcars were
halted while Mexicans, and some Filipinos and Negroes,
were jerked off their seats, pushed into the streets and
beaten with a sadistic frenzy.”
Carey McWilliams. North From Mexico. Quoted in Richard Griswold del Castillo.
The Los Angeles “Zoot Suit Riots” Revisited: Mexican Studies, Vol. 16, No. 2
(Summer, 2000), pp. 367-391.
• The local press commended the attacks
by the servicemen, describing the
assaults as having a “cleansing effect”
that were ridding Los Angeles of
“miscreants” and “hoodlums.”
“Two pachuco zoot-suiters,
one stripped to his underwear,
lie beaten and humiliated in a
Los Angeles street.”
Carey McWilliams. “Blood on the Pavements.” In: Fool’s Paradise: A Carey McWilliams
Reader. Heyday Books, 2001.
http://www.themote.com/viewThread.asp?thread=168&Last=1
• The violence only subsided when
military authorities intervened on June
7. They declared that Los Angeles
would be off-limits to all military
personnel. Of the nine sailors that were
arrested, eight were released with no
charges and one had to pay a small
fine.
Zootsuitriot.jpg
• A week later, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt
characterized the riots, which the local press
had largely attributed to criminal actions by
the Mexican American community, as in fact
being “race riots” rooted in long-term
discrimination against Mexican Americans.
This led to an outraged response by the Los
Angeles Times, which accused Mrs.
Roosevelt of stirring up “racial discord.”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/zoot/eng_timeline/timeline2.html
Zoot Suit rioters: Why didn’t they
arrest the sailors?
A Symbol of Resistance
• By showing the paradox of American
society, zoot-suiters were the ones on the
front line to demand full membership in
society, not just ones convenient to the
dominant society.
• “The Pachuco is the prey of society, but
instead of hiding he adorns himself to
attract the hunter’s attention.” (33)
Labyrinth of Solitude