Essay On The Zoot Suit Riots

The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of racial attacks in 1943 throughout in L.A, California, throughout a amount once several immigrants arrived for the defense effort and new appointed, servicemen flooded Los Angeles. U.S sailors and marines attacked Mexican groups, recognizable by the zoot suits they favored and would always where, as being disloyal. Yank military personnel and Mexicans were the most parties within the riots; servicemen attacked some African yank and Filipino yank youths also, who conjointly took up the zoot suits. The suit Riots were associated with fears and hostilities aroused by the coverage of the blue lake murder trial, following the killing of a young Latino man in a varrio close to L.A. The riots gave the impression to trigger similar attacks that year against Latinos in
Chicago, San Diego, etc. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoot_Suit_Riots)
In the past years leading up to the riots, L.A experienced a huge wave of population explosion. Along with who went to Los Angeles, thousands of Mexican refugees fleeing the Mexican Revolution made their way there. So too did landless white laborers escaping the Dust Bowl of the drought plagued southern Plains, and African Americans seeking more opportunity than they'd found in the South. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoot_Suit_Riots)
The coming of war in 1941 further complicated the city's social dynamics. White men went off to fight in a segregated military, and women and people of color filled the jobs in the defense industry previously reserved for white guys. Rather than embrace such events as social advances, many whites accepted the changing social realities only as the lesser of two evils the greater being German and Japanese military. While wartime conditions rethought about racial boundaries. Segregation was emphatically reinforced in other areas. Civilian and military leaders in Los Angeles all too easily saw cultural and racial difference among Japanese Americans as subversion and betrayal, and actively supported the forced relocation of Japanese Americans into camps set up in the rural West. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoot_Suit_Riots)
Many people from L.A saw themselves on the cutting edge of the fight with Japan and felt helpless against a West Coast assault. Non military personnel watches were built up all through the city and Los Angeles shorelines were invigorated with against air ship firearms. Southern California additionally served as a key military area with bases situated in and between San Diego and Los Angeles. Thusly, up to 50,000 servicemen could be found in L.A. on any given weekend. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoot_Suit_Riots)
Free of these social pressures, youngsters were amazed with jazz. It was a musical, social, and even ideological expression that was far expelled from the Hit Parade music usually played on standard radio. Jazz music were arousing, expressive, blissful, and unruly. Jazz performers transparently challenged isolation by blending on and off the stage, and jazz devotees likewise blended on and off the move floor. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoot_Suit_Riots)
The zoot suit was one part of the jazz world that visually defied the norms of segregation.
Unwritten rules demanded that people of color remain unseen and unheard in public spaces, but the zoot suit, with broad shoulders, narrow waist, and ballooned pants, was loud and bold. Zoot suited young men and women as well, held themselves upright and walked with a confident swagger that seemed to flow from the very fashion itself. As the sleepy lagoon murder trial of 1942, involving mostly Mexican American young men, proved, this particular demographic, zoot suited or not, came to be singled out and associated with criminality and gangsterism by Los Angeles authorities. In a time of war, when social boundaries were rapidly changing, questions of allegiance and conformity became invested with particular significance. Many Angelenos objected to the zoot suiters including, incidentally, older generations of Mexican Americans, whose communities were traditional, conservative, and self contained. Critics saw Mexican American youths as cultural rebels and delinquents who openly defied cherished American values and customs.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoot_Suit_Riots)
Strains in the middle of whites and regular citizens were on the ascent as a huge number of military men on leave filled L.A, seeing the city as a play area for liquor, ladies, and battles. While a lot of citizens endured them in light of the war exertion, others didn't. Especially in the isolated, ethnic enclaves of Los Angeles, rowdy servicemen met firm restriction from young fellows and ladies who declined to concede to the assumed rights of white benefit. While white military men and regular citizen youth of all hues conflicted in the roads, encounters happened most as often as possible between white servicemen and Mexican Americans, since they were the biggest minority bunch in Los Angeles. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoot_Suit_Riots)
Drunken military men were on their way back to base after a night of carousing were often rolled by civilian minority youth hoping to teach them proper respect. With equal mentalities the sailors would often insult Mexican Americans as they traveled through their neighborhood. In the hood, rumors spread about sailors searching out Mexican American girls. On the military bases, stories went around about the violent attack by sailors who dared to date Mexican American females. Sailors complained about their wives or girlfriends being subjected to the sexual taunts of young Mexican Americans. The tension continued to grow until a street fight between sailors and Mexican American boys sparked more than a week of fighting in June of 1943 known as the Zoot Suit Riots. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoot_Suit_Riots)
On May 30, 12 sailors were walking on a street. After spotting a group of young Mexican American women on the opposite side of the street, the sailors and soldiers changed direction and headed their way. Between the military men and the young women stood a group of young men in zoot suits. As the two groups passed each other, Sailor Joe Dacy Coleman, fearing he was about to be attacked, grabbed the arm of one of the zoot suited young men. Coleman move proved to be a big mistake. Coleman was almost immediately struck on the head from behind and fell to the ground, unconscious. Other young civilians jumped on the sailors with rocks, bottles and fists. After the crazy attack, the sailors managed to escape and carry him to safety. It wasn't long before the white people organized a retaliatory strike against latinos. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoot_Suit_Riots)
About 50 sailors left the Armory on the night of June 3rd, with weapons. The attack on Coleman was still fresh in their minds and rumors of new attacks were going through the base. Their first stop was the neighborhood of Alpine, scene of many previous fights. Unable to find any zoot-suiters at Alpine, they proceeded toward downtown and stopped at the Carmen Theater. After turning on the house lights, the sailors roamed the aisles looking for zoot suiters. The first victims of the zoot suit riots 12 and 13 year-old boys were guilty of little more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ignoring the protests of the patrons, the sailors beat boys. The remains of their suits were then set ablaze. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoot_Suit_Riots)