Zoot Suit Riots Case Study

The population started to grow rapidly after WW II. The reason for this was that people wanted to start new life and standard of living was not so bad, consequently in these years was baby boom(increasing the young population). White teens needed new style and new music for dancing because they did not want to listen music, which parents and grandparents listened. They realized that they could afford to own radio. And by 1958 about 70% of the record were purchased by teens

“…About eight sailors got me outside of the theater and they started beating me up. It happened so fast, I passed out. I woke up with a cracked rib, a broken nose, black and blue all over. I was really beat.”(Alvarez, 2006, p.155) During the 1940s, the public had generated stereotypes of the Pachucos and zoot suits, which were eventually transferred to all Mexican Americans. Many young men like Vicente Morales were attacked, humiliated, and stripped from their fashionable clothes by servicemen. However, to what extent did the fashionable expression of the zooters and the culture of the Pachucos influence 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.

“The 1960s were a conflictive decade in the American history, with conflicts that had issues from Civil Rights to the war in Vietnam. The Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, one of the least studied social movements of the 1960s, encompassed a broad cross section of issues from restoration of land grants, to the rights of farm workers, to improve education, to political and voting rights. “ (Rosales, 2).

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

Since before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, race relations between the United States and Mexico have been less than great. The United States has a history of prejudice and racism. On a national level this sentiment has formed some legislation, and on a lower level it has formed the way many people conduct their lives. Mexican have been exploited for their work for decades. One man fought long and hard for his people and their civil liberties. That man was Cesar Chavez.

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

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

Not only was flapper, dancing, and jazz big during this time, but so was crime. Rather than the modest culture in “The Scarlet Letter”, “Chicago” had a culture that was bigger, bolder, and badder. Much of what was going on during this period of history revolved around having a good time.

Thousands of white Americans came to Harlem to experience the night life. The nightclubs in New York appealed to the whites as they were very famous. Jazz music was thriving in the area. It originated in the Unites States among African-American musicians. It was at this time that jazz was at its most famous point. Many people would host rent parties which were very popular at the time. Apartment owners would hold a party and would charge a fee to those who wanted to enter. They used this money in order to pay off their rent (Worth). The influence of jazz also brought musical reviews. Soon white novelists, dramatists and composers started to exploit the musical tendencies and themes of African Americans in their works. Composers used the literary works of African-American poets in their songs. Negros began to merge with Whites into the classical world of musical composition (Wikipedia). Soon, the works of artists were being displayed in nationwide magazines. Their culture began to spread with great velocity.

When Octavio Paz first visited the largest Mexican population center outside of Mexico’s international borders, Los Angles, he said the city had a "vague atmosphere" of Mexicanism in that manifested itself through "delight in decorations, carelessness and pomp, negligence, passion and reserve." But he felt that his "ragged but beautiful" ghost of Mexican identity rarely interacted with "the North American world based on precision and efficiency." Instead, this Mexicanism floated above the city, "never quite existing, never quite vanishing.1By the time Paz visited the exterior Mexico, a generation of Mexican revolution immigrants had their children in the United States and they had matured. These people had heard the corridos of the Revolutionary

The “Flapper Image”, the Jazz Age, and the new technology that sprung about in the twenties can definitely be summarized by using the adjective, boisterous. The “Flapper Image” was when stylish young women began wearing shorter dresses and had shorter hair styles. They not only began wearing heavy makeup, but also began to drink heavy liquor and smoke in public. This new type of woman were rebellious, energetic, fun-loving, and bold.These ladies broke the old traditional house wife type of vibe that women were always supposed to follow. Also, the Jazz Age made the twenties a very enjoyable time to be alive. A dance called “The Charleston” embodied the Jazz age and was wild, reckless, full of kicks, twists, and pivots. This enertiergic dance brought people together in a happy, relaxed way which made the 1920s a boisterous

     Between 1910 and 1920, in a movement known as the Great Migration, hundreds of thousands of African Americans uprooted from their homes in the South and moved North to the big cities in search of jobs. They left the South because of racial violence and economic discrimination. Their migration was an expression of their changing attitudes toward themselves, and has been described as "something like a spiritual emancipation." Many migrants moved to Harlem, a neighborhood on the upper west side of Manhattan. In the 1920's, Harlem became the worlds largest black community; also home to a highly diverse mix of cultures. This unprecedented outburst of creative activity exposed their unique culture and encouraged