The
Zoot Suit Riots were a series of
riots that erupted in
Los Angeles,
California during
World War II, between
white sailors and Marines stationed throughout the city and
Latino youths, who were recognizable by the
zoot suits they favored. While
Mexican Americans were the primary targets of military servicemen,
African American and
Filipino/
Filipino American youth were also targeted.
[1] The Zoot Suit Riots were in part the effect of the infamous
Sleepy Lagoon murder which involved the death of a young Latino man in a barrio near Los Angeles.
The riots began in Los Angeles, amidst a period of rising tensions between American servicemen stationed in southern California and Los Angeles' Mexican-American community. On May 31, 1943, a group of white sailors on leave clashed with a group of young Latinos in the downtown area. One sailor, Joe Dacy Coleman, was stabbed in the melee. The violence escalated as sailors and Marines continued to clash with Mexican-American youth; specifically targeting young men dressed in Zoot Suits and calling themselves pachucos (a precursor to the term Chicano). The Los Angeles Police Department initially refused to intervene as newspapers, headed by various Hearst Publishing dailies, placed the blame entirely on the pachucos. As the violence escalated over the ensuing days, thousands of servicemen joined the attacks.
An eyewitness to the attacks, journalist Carey McWilliams, described the scene as follows
"Marching through the streets of downtown Los Angeles, a mob of several thousand soldiers, sailors, and civilians, proceeded to beat up every zoot suiter they could find. Pushing its way into the important motion picture theaters, the mob ordered the management to turn on the house lights and then ran up and down the aisles dragging Mexicans out of their seats. Streetcars were halted while Mexicans, and some Filipinos and Negroes, were jerked from their seats, pushed into the streets and beaten with a sadistic frenzy."[2]
