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Isaac Parenteau
Linda Gustafson
Race in America
20 November 2011
Zoot Suit Riots:
When the Pushers Come to Shove
During the early 19th century, a person of minority decent, in the United States, was always
faced with many challenges. Coming to a new place and trying to establish oneself is hard enough.
Coming from a minority that is despised by the majority just makes everything more difficult. This clash
of cultures came to a head during the 1940s when a young group of Mexican American’s attempts at
creating a unique identity for themselves, by wearing Zoot Suits, clashed with white servicemen, who
were opposed to the idea of the Mexican Americans and their “outlandish wardrobe” change. These
controversies ultimately lead to a violent riot. The racially discriminatory events that happened before
and during the Zoot Suit Riot lead to a nationwide condemnation of the actions of the military rioters
and civilian authorities.
Racial prejudice against Mexican American immigrants brought forth many conflicts. Tensions
between Mexican American immigrants and the white community began during the early twentieth
century when Mexicans came across the border in search of economic opportunity and to escape the
turmoil of their own countries revolution (Danver 869). During this time, Mexicans were viewed as
“lazy” and prone to criminal activity. They faced racial discrimination in the workforce, education and
housing and were forced into substandard housing and schools. Also, law enforcements agencies,
including the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, always
viewed them with suspicion and senior officers saw Mexicans as “a threat to the established order and
more prone to criminality” (Danver 870). During this time, some Mexican American youth started
wearing zoot suits, to create their own identity, which authorities viewed as a symbol of gang
association and juvenile delinquency (Danver 870).
Most conflicts that happened before the riots were mostly between White service members and
the young Mexican American community. The service members viewed the zoot suiters, those who
wore zoot suits, as a “threat to the established order and to the traditional white conception of
masculinity” (Danver 871). Many brawls happened between the service members and the zoot suiters,
and as World War II progressed, the intensity and frequency of the brawls increased (Danver 871). A
number of military instillations were located near Mexican American communities and routes the
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service men used to go to Los Angeles while on leave would pass through these communities. With
tensions already running high between the two groups, violence was inevitable (Danver 872). The most
prominent charge from each side was the other attacked its girls. Sailors were angered by rumors that
zoot suiters were guilty of “assaults on female relatives of servicemen”. Similarly, the Mexican American
community was claiming that sailors were attacking and insulting Mexican girls (Turner 16). The Sleepy
Lagoon incident was the tipping point for the riots. In August of 1942, Jose Diaz was murdered by a
suspected “38th Street Gang” member near Sleepy Lagoon. Due to newspaper prejudice towards the
young Mexican American “delinquencies”, nearly 600 Mexican American teenagers were rounded up
and subjected to police brutality, evidence tampering, and prosecutorial misconduct (Danver 872). In
the days that followed, any zoot suiter near military installations or other groups of service men was all
the evidence the service men needed that zoot suiters were looking for confrontations. The riot began
on June 3rd, 1943 when eleven white sailors claimed that they were jumped by thirty-five zoot suiters.
When the news of the attack reach the naval barracks, a group of fifty sailors, armed with bats and other
make shift weapons started towards Los Angeles for a change to retaliate against any young Mexican
American they could find (Danver 872).
The sailors, infuriated by the attack on other sailors, wanted revenge. As they marched towards
Alpine Street, they tore through bars and restaurants looking for zoot suiters. As they entered the
Carmen Theater, the service men discovered a group of young Mexican Americans boys, about 12 to 13
years old, and despite other civilian protests, they beat the young boys, stripping and burning their
clothes. The sailors went on marching in search of other zoot suiters but to no avail, as a large number
of Mexican American youth were talking with the police community relations representatives discussing
ways to decrease juvenile delinquency (Danver 873). The violence escalated as more sailors learned of
the attacks. They blocked off city blocks around Figueroa and Main Street, raiding businesses, dances
halls and any place they thought zoot suiters could be. During these raids, neither the military nor the
local police did anything to stop this; in fact many white civilians were helping the rioting sailors (Danver
873). On June 4th, 1943, many sailors piled into taxi’s and headed deep within East Los Angeles, raiding
known locations where zoot suiters liked to hang out. If they found a zoot suiter, they would beat them
up and tear and burn their clothes (Danver 873).
Despite the navy’s feeble attempts to curtail the riots, the sailors continued to hunt down and
assault anyone who remotely resembled a zoot-suited gangster. During this time law enforcement
officers were out in full force, but were only arresting Mexican American teenagers (Danver 874). June
7th, 1943, was the worst night of the riots. Thousands of white service men converged on Los Angeles
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and were joined by white civilians eager to rid Los Angeles of the zoot suiters. The horde split into two
groups, one marching south along Central Avenue and the other moved into East Los Angeles. As the
police watched, “the mob tore through bars, ships, arcades and other known teenage hideouts looking
for zoot suiters. The mob did not break up until 11:30”. Carey McWilliams, who witness the attack,
wrote,
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 from their seats, pushed into the streets
and beaten with a sadistic frenzy (Griswold del Castillo 370).
The riot ended the following day, when the Eleventh Naval District issued orders making Los
Angeles off limits for all military personnel (Los Angeles Barred to Sailors by Navy to Stem Zoot-Suit
Riots 23), and sent in military police to arrest unruly service members (Danver 874).
The aftermath of the riots lead to the nationwide condemnation of the actions of the military
rioters and civilian authorities. For the riots to “…spread as far and lasted as long as they did, reflected
badly on the indifference and apathy of both the military and civilian leadership” (Danver 872). When
the riots ended, the governor created a citizens’ committee to investigate the cause of the riots. Its
findings determined that racism was the central cause of the riot (People & Events: The Zoot Suit Riots
of 1943). First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt commented about the riots by saying, "The question goes deeper
than just [zoot] suits. It is a racial protest. I have been worried for a long time about the Mexican racial
situation. It is a problem with roots going a long way back, and we do not always face these problems as
we should" (Almanac). A human relations committee was appointed to the local police department
advising them on how to train the officers to treat all citizens equally (Almanac). The riots made the
Mexican and Latin American public more aware of the Mexican decent that existed in the United States
and that they were victims of racism and discrimination (Griswold del Castillo 391). “Americans were
beginning to understand the inconsistency between fighting for democracy overseas while still denying
it to many minorities at home” (Danver 875). The riots and its outcome gave the Mexican American
community the drive to fight for more civil rights.
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The need to identify oneself in society can often be difficult and met with resistance especially
when coming from a minority position opposed by the majority. The hatred between the minority and
the majority can be so large that it can eventually lead to a clash and ultimately a riot. The young
Mexican Americans wearing the zoot suits were in constant conflict with white service members and law
enforcement officers in Los Angeles. They were met with constant racism and discrimination, and were
victims of police brutality. The Zoot Suit riot was “… a clear manifestation of the hostility of established
society to any attempt by minorities to assert their own identities” (Danver 875). The events that
happened before during and after the riots brought forth, to the world, the racism and discrimination
the Mexican Americans faced and gave them the motivation to fight for equal civil rights.
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Works Cited
Almanac, Los Angeles. "Los Angeles Zoot Suit Riots." n.d. 1 Nov 2011.
<http://www.laalmanac.com/history/hi07t.htm>.
Danver, Steven L. Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations, and Rebellions in American History: An
Encyclopedia. 23 Oct 2011. eBook Collections (EBSCOhost).
Griswold del Castillo, Richard. "The Los Angeles Zoot Suit Riots Revisited: Mexican and Latin American
Perspectives." Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 16.2 (Summer 2000): 367-391.
<http://www.jstor.org.hrt-proxy.libraries.vsc.edu/stable/1052202>.
"Los Angeles Barred to Sailors by Navy to Stem Zoot-Suit Riots." New York Times, 8 June 1943. 23.
People & Events: The Zoot Suit Riots of 1943. n.d. PBS. 22 Oct 2011.
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/zoot/eng_peopleevents/e_riots.html>.
Turner, Ralph H. "Zoot-Suiters and Mexicans: Symbols in Crowd Behavior." American Journal of
Sociology. Vol. 62. The University of Chicago PRess, Jun 1956. 14-20. <http://www.jstor.org.hrtproxy.libraries.vsc.edu/stable/2773799>.