Zoot Suit Riots



Boys stripped and beaten by U.S. Navy sailors

Location: Los Angeles, California, United States
Date: June 3–8, 1943
Target: Mexican American youths and other zoot suit wearers
Injured: 150+
Victims: 500+ arrested
Perpetrators: American servicemen, police officers, and white civilians
Motive: Racism, removal of zoot suits and "hoodlums"

The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots that took place from June 3–8, 1943 in Los Angeles, California, United States, involving American servicemen stationed in Southern California and young Latino and Mexican American city residents. It was one of the dozen wartime industrial cities that suffered race-related riots in the summer of 1943, along with Mobile, Alabama; Beaumont, Texas; Detroit, Michigan; and New York City.

American servicemen and white Angelenos attacked and stripped children, teenagers, and youths who wore zoot suits, ostensibly because they considered the outfits, which were made from large amounts of fabric, to be unpatriotic during World War II. Rationing of fabrics and certain foods was required at the time for the war effort. While most of the violence was directed toward Mexican American youth, African American and Filipino American youths who were wearing zoot suits were also attacked.

The Zoot Suit Riots were related to fears and hostilities aroused by the coverage of the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial, following the killing of a young Latino man in what was then an unincorporated commercial area near Los Angeles. The riot appeared to trigger similar attacks that year against Latinos in Chicago, San Diego, Oakland, Evansville, Philadelphia, and New York City. The defiance of zoot suiters became inspirational for Chicanos during the Chicano Movement.

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Zoot suits



This photograph of three men sporting variations on the zoot suit was taken by Oliver F. Atkins. Atkins worked for the Saturday Evening Post and was a personal photographer to President Richard Nixon.

Zoot suit fashion found its origins in the urban black scene during the 1940s. This style of clothing cultivated a sense of racial pride and significance; however, the fashion statement soon made its way into the wardrobes of young Southern Californian Mexican Americans, Italians and Filipinos, who became the quintessential wearers of the zoot suit. The transfer and sharing of the zoot suit fashion indicated a growing influence of African American popular culture on young Mexican American, Italian American and Filipino Americans. Additionally, “analysis of the Los Angeles zoot-suit riot and journalists' and politicians' in and the outfit's connections with race relations, slang, jazz music and dance permit an understanding of the politics and social significance of what is trivial in itself -- popular culture and its attendant styles”.

The zoot suit was originally a statement about creating a new wave of music and dress, but it also held significant political meaning. The flamboyant and colorful material indicated a desire to express oneself against the boring and somber slum lifestyle. The zoot suit provided young African American and Mexican youth a sense of individualistic identity within their cultures and society as they discovered “highly charged emotional and symbolic meaning” through the movement, music, and dress.

The zoot suit typically included bright colored fabric, long suit coats that often reached the knees, wide shoulders, and gathered or tapered pants. The arm and ankle areas were often much tighter than the rest of the fabric, giving the whole look a triangular shape.

Often the suit was paired with accessories such as chains and leather soled-shoes, which were typically worn to exaggerate and prove a point of rebellion standing against the wealth and status that many of these youth were unable to access due to their economic and racial identities.

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Los Angeles Zoot Suit Riots, 1943



Armed U.S. servicemen on Los Angeles streets during Zoot Suit Riots. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress.

By the beginning of 1943, America was deeply engaged with World War II. In Los Angeles, the city had already been emptied of its residents of Japanese ancestry. Young Latinos, unlike their elders, were not content to stay within their barrios, but were spilling into downtown dance halls, movie houses, pool halls and clubs. As young men are prone to do, many young Latino males distinguished themselves with distinctive hairdos ( "duck tails" ) and apparel ("drape shapes" or "zoot suits" - wide-brimmed hats, broad-shouldered long coats, high-waisted peg-legged trousers and long dangling chains). They called themselves pachucos. They came into contact with swarms of other young men who wore another type of uniform ...military men. The war had caused Los Angeles to swell with military personnel at local bases, many of them from other parts of the country with no prior experience with Latinos and Latino culture. At first, serviceman merely derided the young Latino males attired in "zoot suits." The derision turned to resentment, however, because the young Latino "zoot suiters" were not in military uniform. In fact, many Mexican American men were already in military uniform, disproportionately so for their numbers. Yet this was not what bored, restless young white servicemen saw when rubbing shoulders with strutting, brown-skinned "zoot suiters" in downtown Los Angeles. The local press had been beating a drum of fear that a "Mexican crime wave" had hit the city and "zoot suiters" and "gangsters" were one and the same.



Zoot suit in 2016 "Reigning Men" exhibit, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles Almanac Photo.

On June 3, 1943, a number of sailors claimed to have been beaten and robbed by Mexican pachucos. The following evening, a mob of about 200 sailors, tired of boredom and fired up with bigotry, hired a fleet of cabs and rolled into East Los Angeles to beat up and strip the clothing off any young Latino male they could find. The authorities seemed to approve. Police made a few initial token arrests of sailors, but they were quickly released. This emboldened the sailors. For several subsequent nights, the swelling mobs of sailors were joined by soldiers and some civilians as they invaded the barrio, marching abreast down streets, invading bars and movie houses, assaulting and humiliating any and all young Latino males, many not attired in "zoot suits." Young Black and Filipino males unfortunate enough to be in the area were also assaulted. Mobs of servicemen in search of "zoot suiters" also prowled the Pike in Long Beach.



Mexican American men fight back against U.S. servicemen seeking to assault "zoot suiters." Photo from L.A. Daily News Negatives Collection at UCLA Library.

Although police accompanied the caravans of rioting servicemen, police orders were to let the shore patrol and military police deal with military men. Instead, after several days of rioting and assaults by servicemen, more than 150 had been injured and police had arrested and charged more than 500 Latino youths for "rioting" or "vagrancy," many themselves the victims. The local press lauded the military rioters for confronting the menace of the "Mexican crime wave." "Zoot Suiters Learn Lesson in Fight with Servicemen," declared the Los Angeles Times. The Los Angeles City Council issued an ordinance banning the wearing of "zoot suits." "The zoot suit has become a badge of hoodlumism," explained Councilman Norris Nelson. "We prohibit nudism by an ordinance and if we can arrest people for being under-dressed, we can do so for being over-dressed."

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Popurri El Cometa y Pachuco - El Gran Sabor de Adrian Diaz (ft. Joey Garcia) Los Garcia Bros.

Adrian Diaz
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Los Angeles apologizes for Zoot Suit Riots 80 years later

NBC News
8M subscribers

16,093 views Jun 10, 2023 #NBCNews #LosAngeles #Riot
Los Angeles County officials along with the city council have issued an apology for the "shameful" Zoot Suit Riots 80 years later. In 1943, white, uniform servicemen attacked young Mexican, Latino, Filipino and Black men for wearing the suits in a series of riots that swept the city for a week.

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How did the Zoot Suit Riots begin? | Zoot Suit Riots | American Experience | PBS

American Experience | PBS
165K subscribers

16,297 views Mar 17, 2022
On June 3, 1943 the tensions simmering between Mexican American youth and the overwhelmingly white servicemen in Los Angeles came to a boil and the Zoot Suit Riots began.

As a group of service personnel were passing a group of civilian youth, one young man raised his hand in a manner that one of the sailors thought was threatening. It seemed that both sides were primed for confrontation. One of the sailors turned around, and grabbed the arm of the young civilian, and from that point the fight broke out. The street seemed to explode in a fight. In the process, the sailor was knocked unconscious and his jaw broken. He had to be dragged back to the armory.

Later that night, a group of sailors armed with belts and clubs left the Naval armory and headed downtown. The Zoot Suit Riots had begun.

Official Website: https://to.pbs.org/3CqUxdB | #ZootSuitPBS

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AIRED APRIL 15, 2023

Zoot Suit Riots

LOS ANGELES ERUPTS IN VIOLENCE
FROM THE COLLECTION: THE U.S. LATINO EXPERIENCE
Film Description
Ver la pelicula con subtitulos en espanol

In June 1943, Los Angeles erupted into the worst race riots in the city to date. For 10 straight nights, American sailors armed with make-shift weapons cruised Mexican American neighborhoods in search of "zoot-suiters" — hip, young Mexican teens dressed in baggy pants and long-tailed coats. The military men dragged kids — some as young as twelve years old — out of movie theaters and diners, bars and cafes, tearing the clothes off the young men's bodies and viciously beating them. Mexican youths aggressively struck back. The fighting intensified and on the worst night, taxi drivers offered free rides to the riot area. One LA paper even printed a guide on how to "de-zoot" a zoot-suiter. When the violence ended, scores of Mexicans and servicemen were in hospital beds.

Zoot Suit Riots is a powerful film that explores the complicated racial tensions and the changing social and political landscape that led up to the explosion on LA's streets in the summer of 1943. To understand what happened during those terrifying June nights, the film describes changes in the city's population — the influx of new immigrants, the booming war-time economy, the huge number of service men on their way to the Pacific theater and a new generation of Mexican Americans who were more conspicuous, more affluent and more self-confident than their parents had ever dared to be.

Decked out in wide brim hats, baggy pants, high boots and long-tailed coats, these "zoot-suiters" called each other "mad cats." They were "Terrific as the Pacific" and "Frantic as the Atlantic." Crossing cultural lines and pushing the boundaries of race and class, they were trying to define for themselves what it meant to be an American in 1942 Los Angeles. Even though there was no evidence to connect "zoot-suiters" to crime, the kids' posturing and self-assurance made Anglos nervous. Many Mexican American parents even agreed that something was wrong with their young people.

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