The Identity Of The Zoot Suit Riots

Following the events of Pearl Harbor, the integration of minority groups into the workforce proved to cause tensions between the groups. Throughout the country, racial riots sparked and caused many conflicts. Two of the most influential riots occurred in Detroit and Los Angeles. The causes of these riots were due to the effects of wartime on the homefront and the racial discrimination that many possessed.

Zoot suits, associated with the Mexican race, consisted of a long jacket that reached almost to the knees, pants with a “tight stuff cuff”, a “wide, flat hat, and Dutch-toe shoes” (Berger 193). These zoot suits were worn by the Mexican youth who were accused of murder on August 2, 1942. People claimed that Jose Diaz was murdered by a gang that had broken up a party at Sleepy Lagoon ranch located close to Los Angeles. However, even though the lower court did convict them of murder, two years later the district court of appeals took that decision back by stating that there was not enough good evidence and that most of that decision was made based on prejudice issues. This incident became known as the “Sleepy Lagoon Affair” and was made

In fact, an “expert” from the L.A. Sheriff’s Department who testified at the Sleepy Lagoon trial is quoted as saying:

During World War II, Latinos in American neighborhoods were subject to inequality, prejudice, and exploitation even though they sacrificed so much for the country. During World War II, East Los Angeles was going through the racial tensions between Anglo sailors, marines and resident Latinos called the Zoot Suit Riots. In document N, it shows a set of photos taken during these Zoot Suit Riots and it shows several teenage boys being stripped of their clothes by the police. It also shows many Anglo sailors with bats and sticks in which they used to attack anyone who was wearing a zoot suit. The tension was all caused because Many sailors and marines would pass through Latino communities where confrontations between them and Latinos wearing Zoot

In the documentary Zoot Suit Riots, the similarity between the death of Jose Diaz and the Zoot Suit Riots is the zoot suiters both encountered prejudice and critiques in the papers. Hank Leyvas and the boys were sentenced as guilty in Los Angeles tabloid journals. And the Los Angeles press has severe bias against the zoot suiter and even is hostile to them. In the papers, they were partial to the servicemen and said that they had only been avenging injuries on them and their wives caused by zoot suiters. And they praised the acts of servicemen which involved attacks and assaults and considered them to have the effect of cleansing hoodlums. Moreover, the Los Angeles Examiner even wrote that there were no time for arguments and

The suit riots were a sequence of the many completely different racial bursts that occurred between Mexican yanks and American servicemen in Los Angeles, California. These attacks developed during the Los Angeles space throughout the first 1940’s. Before all of the numerous American’s started returning to this area, while the Mexican American’s have already formed their lives there. “Zoot Suit Riots” take their name from the high-waisted wool trousers and baggy, long-tailed suit coats then worn by several youths, however the violence was a lot of regarding race relations than fashion. The zoot suits were impressed by the jazz music that was very hip among the youth of the Latino youths referred to as “Pachucos.”

Racial tensions began heightening in the city of Los Angeles on June of 1943. It’s what came to be known as the Zoot Suit Riots. Racial tension between Mexican Americans who were called both pachucos and zoot suiters. They were known for their fashion which had a symbolic meaning towards them, it was a way in expressing themselves which white sailors and servicemen disliked. They saw Mexican Americans as thugs, gang members, and delinquents. White servicemen and sailors were unfamiliar with hispanics, but it was so easy for them to discriminate by appearance. Several Mexican Americans served in white units. Tension was rising between them, especially when marines and sailors assaulted both Mexican and African Americans in their own neighborhood. Also, for a false rumor towards Mexican Americans which stated that they had attacked and stabbed a sailor. Both races were being discriminated and were treated unjustly. The day came on June 3, 1943 where these conflicts led to the Zoot Suit Riots. This incident of violence lasted a whole week. Zoot suiters were beaten and arrested for no reason at all. The issues that led to the Zoot Suits in 1943 was Jose Diaz, the Sleepy Lagoon Case, and racial attacks between whites and people of color. This filled the atmosphere with a lot of hatred and discrimination that had erupted in the summer of 1943. The riot led to a compromise of all military personnel being banned from the city limits with in Los Angeles

This thematic standpoint in return provides ground for a second major theme; the 1960s was home to the birth of civil rights movements and forever changed the American idea of the status quo. To a large extent, it is agreeable that that the 1960s serves as the era that led to activism in the US. Anderson is able to confirm and strengthen his standpoint by the fact that it was during one of the greatest milestones of the 1960s, the Vietnam War, that for the first time in the history of the US, the government was subjected to criticism and attacks against their “ways”. This can be evidenced by the fact that Americans, which were majority college students, took to the streets to protest government action. At the time, the policies and actions put forth by the government were seen to be very secretive and wrong. Citizens were hastily informed about the need to stop the spread of communism at the expense of capitalism. Not only were government policies seen as corrupt, the government had kept the American society in the dark concerning the actual situation in Vietnam. There seemed to be no cost that was worth retreating from Vietnam. Draft calls were constantly increasing and the war itself began to result in federal expenditures, deficits, and inflationary pressures ( Anderson 90). For some Americans, the war not only damaging, but unfair. Mexican Americans were the poorest and

The Plan de San Diego provided an excuse to both Anglos and Hispanics to settle scores and seize opportunities. The authors unveil how the backlash resulted in a wave of racism and the deaths of some three hundred Mexican nationals. Harris and Sadler bring light to little known historical events which seem to still affect relationships and feelings between both sides of the warring parties. For example, they suggest The Plan de San Diego was probably devised by supporters of Mexican rebel, Venustiano Carranza, in his homeland and not the town of San Diego, Texas. His motive was to divert the attention away from his rival Pancho Villa.

It is evident from the information presented in source 2a that Army Chief of Staff MacArthur’s troops used means such as “gas grenades and bayonets” to drive the protesters from their camps. Therefore, a conclusion that can be drawn from source 2a is that the protestors were gassed then driven from their camps with force by the means of troops armed with

The riots were started by the people who now had distrust in the police, because even when caught on tape, they could get away with such brutality. Although many people believe the riots were caused simply by King verdict, but in reality, these extensive cruel actions were a justified protest to the social injustice and inequality in which people live. The media, however focused more upon the matter of prejudice and thus did not portray the riots as an anger from the African American people finding out that the four Los Angeles policemen were found not guilty and were only facing excessive force

The Spanish Civil War had led to terrible consequences for the Spanish people. Historians are in agreement that foreign contemporaries often misunderstood the civil war as a battle between democracy ad fascism, when in reality; it had been a complex chapter in Spain’s history. The social consequences for Spain had been atrocious. The civil war had led to 325,000 deaths overall. At the end of the war almost half a million Spaniards were forced into exile. Spain also lost come of its greatest political leaders as Azana and Largo and some of its most symbolic and beautiful voices – Lorca. Furthermore, the war had brought terror to the Spanish people. For example, in Malaga, the terror had been inflicted on the Spanish people by their own people. Although arguable, the Condor Legion of Germany had committed the greatest acts of terror in 1939. The Condor Legion bombed the Basque town of Guernica on the 26th of April 1937. The bombing raid took place for three and a half hours, without any pauses, and left the town completely destroyed. For Spain the effects of the terror was to strengthen the position of the nationalists. Franco had leant from his days in Africa that loyalty can be installed without fear.

It is quite understandable that contemporaries, whatever their sympathies, should have viewed the Spanish Civil War in such cosmic terms. I will now examine in some detail, first the European, and then, the Spanish context, into which the civil war was born to see why such a conclusion might be drawn.

Violence leads these Andeans cities to do not obtained what they wanted, because as soon as they implemented the use of violence the Peninsulars and also some Andeans respond with violence too and then the wars began. Likewise, the conflicts of who obtained more economic resources, honor or power and also the lack of leadership in their cities guided them to various unsuccessful tries of rebellion. As consequence, that the Andeans did not get the support of other racial groups and the Peninsulars did, these rebellions were at vain because they lose more than they won. A clear image of this statement is that Andeans where fighting alone against several groups that were unified, therefore they were in a disadvantage. It is clear that the desire of power and the use of violence have been a problem since the early 1780s until

Racial tension was running high to anyone that was different. Howard Becker suggested that “culture arises essentially in response to a problem faced in common by a group of people…” which is seen in the Pachuco culture (Becker, 80). The pachuco did not want to become a Mexican again; at the same time, he did not want to blend into the life of North America, this was the problem that many Mexican-Americans faced when living in the United States (Paz, 14). This group rebelled against both Mexican and American cultures and it grew because this group was not seen as patriotic nor American because they refused to enlist and resisted