Zoot-suit riots
The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of racially charged conflicts that erupted in Los Angeles in June 1943, primarily involving servicemen and young Mexican Americans known as zoot-suiters. The riots occurred against a backdrop of rising racial tensions and discrimination during World War II, as the city experienced significant population growth that brought together diverse groups, including Mexican immigrants and Black Americans. Zoot suits, characterized by oversized styles, became emblematic of a rebellious youth culture, particularly among Mexican American pachucos, who often faced societal disdain from the predominantly white military and mainstream media.
These conflicts escalated following an incident involving a young zoot-suiter and accusations of violent behavior from both sides, leading to mobs of servicemen targeting zoot-suiters for several days. The violence, which often went unchecked by law enforcement, resulted in numerous injuries and arrests but no fatalities. In the aftermath, investigations pointed to racial discrimination as a key factor, although responses varied among local authorities. The riots highlighted the deep-seated cultural and racial divides in American society, foreshadowing future race-related unrest in other cities. In recent years, there have been official acknowledgments of the injustices surrounding the events, with local government bodies taking steps to address historical discrimination.
Zoot-suit riots
The Event Street fighting between servicemen and young Mexican American civilians
Date Primarily June 3–9, 1943
Place Los Angeles, California
The fighting and arrests that took place during the so-called Zoot-Suit Riots provided a poignant demonstration of the ethnic and racial tensions that existed in Los Angeles and elsewhere during the early 1940s.
In the decades before the 1940s, Los Angeles experienced an explosive growth in population. A diverse mixture of midwesterners, Mexican immigrants, Black Americans, and southerners flocked to the city in search of jobs and economic opportunity. The majority of the city’s white citizens harbored negative stereotypes concerning marginalized racial or ethnic groups. Widespread discrimination in housing and employment resulted in feelings of bitterness and alienation on the part of those marginalized groups.
After the United States entered World War II in 1941, xenophobic prejudices became more pronounced, and some members of marginalized groups did not want to fight for a country that failed to give them equal rights. Most servicemen had contempt for young men who tried to avoid military service, and they resented anyone who did not show respect and deference toward men in uniform. The Los Angeles region, with its large military presence, became a tinderbox of racial and ethnic tensions.
The Zoot-Suit Subculture
Zoot suits were oversized costumes with ballooned, tight-cuffed trousers and long coats with wide, padded shoulders and large lapels. Frequently the costume also featured a long watch chain and a felt hat topped by a long feather. The flamboyant attire tended to be associated with jazz music, sensual dancing, and energetic night life. Black Americans in Harlem were the first to popularize the suits, which they called drapes. By the early 1940s, the zoot-suit fad had become popular among Latinos throughout the nation, and it had an especially strong appeal for rebellious young Mexican Americans who called themselves “pachucos.” Although there is debate about the origin of the word “zoot,” it most likely evolved from the Mexican-Spanish pronunciation of the English word “suit.”
Largely because they were treated as outsiders, zoot-suiters conveyed an attitude of disdain for White middle-class values and conventions. Non-Hispanic White men, especially those in the military, resented the way the zoot-suiters proudly swaggered when they walked, and they commonly perceived the zoot subculture as a threat to the war effort. Both zoot-suiters and servicemen took their masculinity seriously, and members of each group accused the other of showing disrespect toward women of their respective cultural groups. The mainstream press tended to be hostile toward zoot-suiters, frequently portraying them as disloyal to the country, violent, and criminally delinquent. Cartoonist Al Capp helped to promote this negative stereotype in his Li’l Abner comic strips between April 11 and May 23, 1943. In these strips, he ascribed conspiratorial machinations to zoot-suit wearers, thereby identifying zoot-suiters as a potential threat. During a period of wartime rationing, moreover, many Americans criticized the wearing of zoot suits because of the extravagant amount of cloth required for their construction.
Growing Suspicions and Conflict
An unsolved murder of a young man named José Díaz at a swimming hole called Sleepy Lagoon helped prepare the background for the Zoot-Suit Riots. Young Latinos often went to Sleepy Lagoon, located a few miles south of Los Angeles, for parties, gang meetings, and romantic encounters. In August 1942, after Diaz was found dead at the site, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) responded with a mass arrest of about six hundred Latinos. Twenty-two members of the notorious Thirty-eighth Street Gang were prosecuted, and nineteen were found guilty in January 1943, even though the evidence was circumstantial and weak. In reporting the trials, the majority of regional newspapers warned that criminality was rampant and growing within the Mexican American community. Most Mexican Americans, however, questioned the fairness of the verdicts, which were later overturned on procedural grounds.
During the spring of 1943, the LAPD had several violent confrontations with young Latino men, including one in which officers shot and killed an unarmed thirteen-year-old boy who was driving a stolen car. The Mexican American community usually blamed police brutality for the confrontations, whereas the mainstream press and the overwhelming majority of White people defended the LAPD. Meanwhile, Venice and other communities in the region saw a growing number of fights between servicemen and zoot-suiters. About fifty thousand servicemen entered the city on leave each weekend, resulting in numerous opportunities for conflict. Whenever fights with zoot-suiters occurred, servicemen almost invariably claimed to have been insulted and attacked for no reason. Likewise, the zoot-suiters insisted that they were victims of unprovoked aggression.
Mobs and Riots
When seaman Joe Coleman was knocked unconscious by zoot-suiters on May 30, 1943, rumors magnified the seriousness of the incident. Four days later, on June 3, about fifty White sailors left the Naval Reserve Armory determined to get revenge. Storming into the Carman Theater, they clubbed at least two young zoot-suiters and then tore up their suits. That same night, in East Los Angeles, a group of eleven sailors were walking down Main Street when, according to their account, they were suddenly attacked and beaten by a gang of at least thirty-five Latinos wearing zoot suits. Although their injuries were minor, LAPD officers, calling themselves the “vengeance squad,” responded by arresting about a dozen Latinos.
The next day, more than two hundred angry sailors traveled to East Los Angeles in a caravan of taxicabs and military vehicles. Whenever they saw zoot-suiters, a delegation of the sailors attacked them, hitting and kicking them and then ripping their clothing. For the next four days, hundreds of additional soldiers and Marines joined the fights. They targeted mostly Mexican Americans, but they also attacked Black Americans. Many of the victims were not wearing zoot suits. Frequently, the attackers blocked off streets to keep victims from escaping. Newspapers featured photographs of roving mobs of servicemen armed with clubs and sticks. The police generally did not intervene, although they did confiscate a few weapons. Zoot-suiters were not simply passive victims; some of them used decoys and set traps to attack small and isolated groups of servicemen.
On Monday, June 7, military officials finally issued an order restricting enlisted men from Los Angeles. Outbreaks of fighting nevertheless continued throughout the day. By then, many civilians were participating in the mob violence. That evening, a crowd of five thousand White citizens gathered downtown, and several groups from the crowd marched through marginalized neighborhoods in search of zoot-suiters. By Tuesday, the violence had subsided, although scattered fighting continued in the city for the next two days. By then, a total of about two hundred Mexican Americans had been arrested, and five hundred servicemen had been taken into custody temporarily by military authorities. Although dozens of people were treated for serious injuries, no deaths were reported. A few days after the riots ended, there were reports of zoot-suiters being attacked in other cities, including San Diego, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Detroit. These disturbances foreshadowed the violent race riots that would occur in New York and Detroit later that summer.
Impact
Soon after the restoration of order to Los Angeles, California’s governor, Earl Warren, ordered the establishment of a citizens’ council to investigate and report on the causes of the riots. Later that year, the Tenney Committee’s report asserted that White racism was the central cause. Eleanor Roosevelt and other liberals expressed similar conclusions. Mayor of Los Angeles Fletcher Bowron, however, disagreed and said that the riots had simply been a clash between juvenile delinquents and a few White extremists. The city council declared its support for the police, and it came close to passing an ordinance making it a misdemeanor to wear a zoot suit. Governor Warren blamed the press for its sensational coverage and the LAPD for not taking more aggressive action to stop the riots. In the short term, the riots did not result in any major social change, but they demonstrated the potential for future violence based on racial and cultural differences.
Many decades later, in 2023, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted not only to denounce the riots but to strengthen the county's efforts to combat discrimination and racism. Shortly after, the Los Angeles City Council issued its own apology, officially recognizing that the city responded inappropriately to the violence and even played a role in sanctioning it.
Bibliography
Alvarez, Luis. The Power of the Zoot: Youth Culture and Resistance During World War II. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.
Ellis, Rebecca. "L.A. Apologizes for City’s Role in Zoot Suit Riots." Los Angeles Times, 9 June 2023, www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-06-09/los-angeles-city-council-zoot-suit-riots. Accessed 14 Aug. 2023.
Escobar, Edward. Race, Police, and the Making of a Political Identity: Mexican Americans and the Los Angeles Police Department, 1900-1945. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
Macías, Anthony. Mexican American Mojo: Dance and Urban Culture in Los Angeles, 1938-1968. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2008.
Mazón, Mauricio. The Zoot-Suit Riots: The Psychology of Symbolic Annihilation. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1988.
Pagán, Eduardo O. Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon: Zoot Suits, Race, and Riot in Wartime L.A. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
Ramírez, Catherine. The Woman in the Zoot Suit: Mexican American Women, Nationalism, and the Cultural Politics of Memory. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2009.
Sanchez, George, and Gonzalo Sanchez. Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.