Zoot Suit Riots

Zoot Suit Riots
Youths stripped and beaten by U.S. Navy sailors
LocationLos Angeles, California, United States
DateJune 3–8, 1943
TargetMexican American youths and other zoot suit wearers
Injured150+
Victims500+ arrested
PerpetratorsAmerican servicemen, police officers, and white civilians
MotiveRacism, removal of zoot suits and "hoodlums"

The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots[1] that took place 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.[2] It was one of the dozen wartime industrial cities where race-related riots occurred during 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 white mobs targeted Mexican American youth, they also attacked African American and Filipino American young adults and children.[3]

The Zoot Suit Riots followed the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial, after the death of a young Latino man in what was then an unincorporated commercial area near Los Angeles. Similar racist violence against Latinos happened in Chicago, San Diego, Oakland, Evansville, Philadelphia, and New York City as well.[4] The defiance of zoot suiters became inspirational for Chicanos during the Chicano Movement.[5][6][7]

  1. ^ Pagan, Eduardo Obregon (2000). "Los Angeles Geopolitics and the Zoot Suit Riot, 1943". Social Science History. 24 (1): 223–256. doi:10.1017/S0145553200010129. ISSN 1527-8034. S2CID 145233558.
  2. ^ "Zoot Suits Riots". August 9, 2023.
  3. ^ Peiss, Kathy (2011). Zoot Suit. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 33. ISBN 9780812223033. Over the next few days, crowds of white civilians joined in the rampage, targeting mainly Mexican American youths but also some African Americans and Filipinos.
  4. ^ Novas, Himilce (2007). "Mexican Americans". Everything you need to know about Latino history (2008 ed.). New York City: Plume. p. 98. ISBN 9780452288898. LCCN 2007032941.
  5. ^ Sandoval, Denise M. (2013). "The Politics of Low and Slow/Bajito y Suavecito: Black and Chicano Lowriders in Los Angeles, from the 1960s through the 1970s". In Kun, Josh; Pulido, Laura (eds.). Black and Brown in Los Angeles: Beyond Conflict and Coalition. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. p. 197. ISBN 9780520956872.
  6. ^ Mazón, Mauricio (1989). The Zoot-Suit Riots: The Psychology of Symbolic Annihilation. University of Texas Press. pp. 118. ISBN 9780292798038.
  7. ^ Berumen, Garcia; Javier, Frank (2016). Latino Image Makers in Hollywood: Performers, Filmmakers and Films Since the 1960s. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. p. 145. ISBN 9781476614113.