Speaker 1: M Hey everybody, it's me Josh, your old pal, and
Speaker 1: for this week's s Y s K Select, I've chosen
Speaker 1: our episode on zoot suits. It is a fascinating overlooked
Speaker 1: piece of history about how clothes can mean so much
Speaker 1: more than just what's keeping the elements off of you
Speaker 1: or keeping your modesty intact. Plus, listen up for a
Speaker 1: surprise appearance by Mystery Science Theater three thousand. It is
Speaker 1: quite surprising. Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuckers Bryant. And since two of us are sitting together
Speaker 1: again and it's not lunchtime, um, it's leg wrestling time.
Speaker 1: That's true. This means it's a stuff you should know? Right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's up to? How are you? Josh? I'm good. We
Speaker 1: just got something in today that I want to give
Speaker 1: a shout out of banks for to our friend Martin
Speaker 1: van Nostran. Did that come in today today? Okay? He
Speaker 1: kept emailing us, pestering me has it not come yet?
Speaker 1: Like I like, I'm the Postmaster general or something like that.
Speaker 1: But anyway, He sent us each a T shirt and
Speaker 1: the new CD of his band. The Bangalore's in Vitro
Speaker 1: Meat is the name of the album, and it's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: I haven't listened to it yet. I just got it,
Speaker 1: can't wait. He sent us some some songs off of
Speaker 1: it already, some previous cuts. Yeah, he was the first
Speaker 1: person to record a stuff you should know song like
Speaker 1: in two thousand eight you remember, well, Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think he has a toxic plasmosis song on the new one,
Speaker 1: right he does. Yeah, we've inspired a lot. I think
Speaker 1: he released a whole album of stuff you should know
Speaker 1: songs really yeah, and like quick little punk songs to
Speaker 1: like a minute and a half. So there's like fifty
Speaker 1: of them. But anyway, thanks a lot to Van Nostrin.
Speaker 1: We won't say his real name, but we know it.
Speaker 1: We do finally, we didn't for a long time. But anyway,
Speaker 1: if you feel like checking that out, it's um. The
Speaker 1: Bangalore's like the city in India and the album is
Speaker 1: in vitro meat. And we'll probably get in trouble for
Speaker 1: endorsing this, so Chuck, you want to get to it? Yes,
Speaker 1: have you ever heard of some dumb laws? Yeah? Man,
Speaker 1: there are some dumb laws in this great land of ours.
Speaker 1: For example, if I may have prepared a shortlist. In Alabama,
Speaker 1: bear wrestling matches are prohibited. It's illegal to sell peanuts
Speaker 1: in Lee County after sundown on Wednesday. It would be
Speaker 1: Lee County, Alabama. Did you give a reason for that one? No,
Speaker 1: there are some This is from I think dumb laws
Speaker 1: dot com and um. They have like just international laws,
Speaker 1: state laws, local laws, and then under some of them
Speaker 1: they have like full text of the law or why
Speaker 1: this law exists. It's pretty comprehensive sit Um. In Hawaii,
Speaker 1: coins are not allowed to be placed in one's ears
Speaker 1: for spec ending only. Um. All residents may be find
Speaker 1: as a result of not owning a boat. You're going
Speaker 1: to Hawaii tomorrow right or a couple of days. I
Speaker 1: dare you to put a coin in your ear and
Speaker 1: walk around like I don't own a boat. I don't
Speaker 1: own a boat. Chumps um back in our fair state
Speaker 1: of Georgia. To legally use profanity in front of a
Speaker 1: dead body which lies in a funeral home or in
Speaker 1: a corner's office, that's respectful. That's a good law. Okay.
Speaker 1: Um in Ackworth, which is close to Kennesaw, where I
Speaker 1: grew up, where you had to own a gun. I
Speaker 1: didn't know this. In Acworth, all citizens must own a rake.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, not a blower? A rake? I think a blower.
Speaker 1: That's kind of like asking a lot of some some
Speaker 1: of the lower income classes, you know. Um, In Athens
Speaker 1: on Mondays it's illegal for one to whistle very loudly
Speaker 1: after eleven pm. What but on Monday's. And then California,
Speaker 1: of course is going to have some zany lass They
Speaker 1: have tons and tons of wacky dumb laws. Animals are
Speaker 1: banned from mating publicly within feet of a tavern, school
Speaker 1: or place of worship. That I agree. When women may
Speaker 1: not drive in a housecoat too, and Fresno, getting drunk
Speaker 1: in a playground is against the law, that is sound.
Speaker 1: I don't agree with that one. That's sensible. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then in Los Angeles it's illegal to wear a zoot suit.
Speaker 1: Yeah still still so I bring that up. And I
Speaker 1: knew chuck with like that last one, because I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's stories behind almost all of those zany laws, or
Speaker 1: at least there's some reasoning people don't just make up
Speaker 1: crazy laws like bear wrestlings. I'm sure, it got out
Speaker 1: of hand once and now they're just like, that's it.
Speaker 1: It's illegal. So Chuck and I actually know the reason
Speaker 1: why zoot suits are illegal in Los Angeles County, California,
Speaker 1: and we're going to tell you about it today. It's
Speaker 1: pretty neat. This little article started off as a bit
Speaker 1: of a uh a lark. I don't know, but we
Speaker 1: thought zoot suits. Those are interesting and cool. But it's
Speaker 1: more than a suit, as it turns out, it really is.
Speaker 1: It was at least you should probably mention, like, what
Speaker 1: is a zoot suit, Chuck. Everybody's seen them before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: back in the nineteen thirties. Uh, they were very much
Speaker 1: in fashion, especially in uh in uh Latino communities, in
Speaker 1: African American communities coast to coast though. Yeah, it seems
Speaker 1: like uh, Caesar Chavez, Malcolm X, Cab Callaway, big band leaders,
Speaker 1: the jazz scene in New York all very much associated
Speaker 1: with zoot suits. Tom Cat from Tom and Jerry, Yeah,
Speaker 1: who was going after a girl and she said he
Speaker 1: was a square and was corny and he goes out
Speaker 1: and gets some a zoot suit and becomes a cool cat,
Speaker 1: cool cat. Yeah, so you'll know a zoot suit. They
Speaker 1: were originally worn made of wool and then later rayon.
Speaker 1: But you'll know it because they're very distinct. They have
Speaker 1: very broad, padded shoulders, very long waisted coats. Uh. Suit
Speaker 1: pants were worn really really high, like up over the
Speaker 1: belly and uh, we're very tight at the top, then
Speaker 1: ballooned out like mc hammer style and then tapered back
Speaker 1: down again at the ankle or were pegged. Oh of course, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how you achieved that look. And um, the jackets
Speaker 1: exaggerated contours and colors. A lot of times they would
Speaker 1: wear the big pocket watch chain that went down to
Speaker 1: their knee and the hat with a feather, and it
Speaker 1: was shoes, pointy shoes. Sure, um so they if it
Speaker 1: sounds a lot like um, pimps, seventies pimps. Yeah, where
Speaker 1: to you? Not too far off? I guess I think
Speaker 1: you could make an argument that it was a predecessor
Speaker 1: of that. And in fact, you mentioned Malcolm X favorite
Speaker 1: ZOOS suits. I didn't realize this today, but in researching
Speaker 1: zo suits, Malcolm X used to be called Detroit Red,
Speaker 1: who was in fact a pimp. Yeah, and he apparently
Speaker 1: got his education in Harlem and became Malcolm X. Did
Speaker 1: you not see the movie? No, it was good. From
Speaker 1: what I remember from the awesome Spike Lee movie was
Speaker 1: that he was into the zoot scene earlier. And then
Speaker 1: once he you know, became Malcolm X and uh not,
Speaker 1: what was his original name, Shabaz? Yes, I believe so
Speaker 1: Malcolm Shabaz. So once he became Malcolm X and got
Speaker 1: serious about the civil rights, he ditched the zoot suit
Speaker 1: and stuff and a little more traditionally garbed right. Um,
Speaker 1: another way, So the zoos suit you you just nailed
Speaker 1: it on the head. You said, the zoos suit scene.
Speaker 1: It was very much part of a scene, part of
Speaker 1: the Harlem renaissance. Um. It was part of the pacho
Speaker 1: scene out in Los Angeles, which we'll talk about. Pacho, Pacho, pachuco, pachuco.
Speaker 1: I used, I like slang on top of slang, pacho. Um.
Speaker 1: And so it was kind of the uniform of this
Speaker 1: certain kind of scene, apparently the upscale black nightclubs of Harlem.
Speaker 1: Like if if you saw an African American man walking
Speaker 1: around where in a zoot suit, you're like, that guy
Speaker 1: is a high roller and he knows how to get
Speaker 1: into the good clubs. I thought you were gonna bust
Speaker 1: out some Cab Callaway slang. Well, you mentioned Cab Callaway
Speaker 1: was one of the the people who love zoos suits,
Speaker 1: and he wrote a dictionary of slang, of jive slang.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I could not be square if I tried um,
Speaker 1: And one of the one of the words that he
Speaker 1: put down was zoot which he says means exaggerated. It
Speaker 1: turns out that there's a whole lot of mystery surrounding
Speaker 1: the origins of zoot suit. But if I may, in
Speaker 1: Cab Callaway's jive slang, describe what a zoot suit looks like,
Speaker 1: you did a great job in normal, square, corny terms.
Speaker 1: But if you want to talk like a hepcat from
Speaker 1: the jive jump zoot suit era, you would describe it
Speaker 1: as a killer dealer coat with a drape shape, real
Speaker 1: pleats and shoulders padded like a lunatic cell. Well, it's
Speaker 1: interesting that he said drape because originally they were known
Speaker 1: as drape suits and even advertised as extreme quote extreme
Speaker 1: drapes in newspapers. Yeah pretty cool. Yeah, So the zoosus
Speaker 1: hanging out there, it's kind of weird. Ralph Ellison wrote
Speaker 1: about UM wrote about it in as an Invisible Man.
Speaker 1: His novel The Narrator encounters um three young and extravagantly
Speaker 1: dressed blacks in their zoos suits, and he says that
Speaker 1: they were the stewards of something uncomfortable. So he's saying, like,
Speaker 1: there's just it's almost like it was. It's the same
Speaker 1: as if you're if you saw a bunch of raid
Speaker 1: kids wearing like the stupid pants yes in the nineties
Speaker 1: or whatever, you know, or hip hop kids today, it
Speaker 1: was this. It was the same thing, except this was
Speaker 1: much more upscale, right than that. But it was basically
Speaker 1: lands today. Yeah, that people have trouble walking in, but
Speaker 1: they're still gotta have that look, you know, right, because
Speaker 1: that's what the cool kids do exactly. So this was
Speaker 1: you could would argue the original American version of counter
Speaker 1: culture dress agreed, and it grew out of Harlem and
Speaker 1: was later adopted by um Mexican Americans or Latino Americans
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. Yeah, what's this one bit that it
Speaker 1: could have originated in Gainesville, Georgia? How about that? So yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of there's some origin stories, right, and yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're none of them are the same, right, and
Speaker 1: they're all very different. No, but I do like that
Speaker 1: when you're talking about from Gainesville, what is it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: They a man, a bus driver, I'm sorry, bust worker
Speaker 1: named Clyde Duncan from New York. Um came back to
Speaker 1: New York with one and said he bought it in Gainesville, Georgia,
Speaker 1: And allegedly, uh, he had been inspired by Gone with
Speaker 1: the Wind and wanted to look like Rhet Butler and
Speaker 1: so got a Taylor in Gainesville to make him this sing.
Speaker 1: I'd like to go with that story. And well, the
Speaker 1: New York Times put that story forth and they said
Speaker 1: it basically on it quickly in and um that was
Speaker 1: the story for many many years until his oriens actually
Speaker 1: started to put real effort and thought it into the
Speaker 1: zoot suits. Um, and they found that there It's possibly true,
Speaker 1: but most likely uh, it came out of either guys
Speaker 1: like Cab Callaway wearing them or guys like Cab Callaway
Speaker 1: copying people in the jazz scene. And then you know
Speaker 1: it basically going forth like that, asks good m H. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: it seems that it did come out of this era,
Speaker 1: whether it was uh, this Clyde Duncan fella who had
Speaker 1: the idea originally or whatever. You can basically say the
Speaker 1: Harlem Renaissance. Zoot suits came out of that. And you know,
Speaker 1: I knew that. I did not know of its associate
Speaker 1: Asian within the Latino and largely Mexican community. No, but
Speaker 1: that's where like really started to It switched when it
Speaker 1: hit the Latino American community. Before it was just like,
Speaker 1: I'm wealthy, I can get into good clubs. I'm part
Speaker 1: of this club scene in Harlem. Um. When it hit
Speaker 1: Los Angeles and was taken up by the pachos Um Square, Uh,
Speaker 1: it changed, it transformed, It turned into something political and
Speaker 1: became ultimately a sign of defiance. Yeah. In the World
Speaker 1: War Two, you know, everyone knows that there was there
Speaker 1: was rationing going on everything from food to metals and
Speaker 1: ultimately wool and cloth. So wearing a zoot suit, which
Speaker 1: required an abundance of cloth was deemed not patriotic because
Speaker 1: you're basically flaunting, Hey, I don't care about the war effort.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna wear my zoot suit. That's more important to me,
Speaker 1: right exactly. So. Um, In in the forties, the War
Speaker 1: Production Board basically said we need to cut back all
Speaker 1: fabric use in the States by and to help you.
Speaker 1: Here is the new American suit. It's streamline, it uses
Speaker 1: less fabric. As long as you're making stuff according to these, um,
Speaker 1: these sketches, your patriotic, you're American, You're within the law. Right.
Speaker 1: Uncle Sam wanted to squear tight clothes pretty much. And
Speaker 1: if you think about if you look at the suits
Speaker 1: in the fifties and sixties and after the forties, Um,
Speaker 1: the American the classic American suit is narrow, narrow cut,
Speaker 1: the cuffs are high. Yeah. Um, so I wonder if
Speaker 1: that came out of I'm sure it did, but you
Speaker 1: can take what they were saying a different way, and
Speaker 1: that Uncle Sam's telling you to dress like this, and
Speaker 1: everybody dressed like that. So zoos suits immediately became, um,
Speaker 1: a symbol of defiance. Anybody who wore him was saying,
Speaker 1: you know, up yours, Uncle Sam. Uh. And it was
Speaker 1: ultimately illegal to man facture or advertise as zoot suit
Speaker 1: or anything that fell outside of those American suits. So incredibly,
Speaker 1: bootleg and underground tailors grew up to make and sell
Speaker 1: zoot suits, and at the same time, especially in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: it had an association with UH gang activity, criminal activity
Speaker 1: and thuggery, largely because of newspapers that would call them,
Speaker 1: you know, zoot suitors committing crimes. They would you know,
Speaker 1: label people in its particular clothing as being criminals. Essentially. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: racism is definitely nothing new in this country, and it
Speaker 1: was um hot and heavy in the late thirties early
Speaker 1: forties in Los Angeles among um it was mainly targeted,
Speaker 1: I think, toward Latino Americans, but it's not like African
Speaker 1: Americans didn't get the brunt of it as well. But
Speaker 1: basically it was white people in California were like, hey,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of you these days, so you're making
Speaker 1: us a little nervo us and um, you wearing the
Speaker 1: zoots suit is easy to target. It just so happened
Speaker 1: that the group that they were targeting was actually kind
Speaker 1: of homogeneous people who wore zoos suits, kind of wore
Speaker 1: them in defiance, but also identified themselves with them, right,
Speaker 1: the pachos. It was a statement of independence, not necessarily
Speaker 1: thumbing your nose at the United States, but just hey,
Speaker 1: I'm independent, I'm Latino, I'm living in Los Angeles, and
Speaker 1: this is our look. So the pachos, Yeah, the pachucos,
Speaker 1: the pachos. I'm seeing pachos right here, Octavio pa said, pachos. Yeah, okay, Um,
Speaker 1: So the pachos were it's They weren't an import from Mexico.
Speaker 1: They were a real American hybrid. They were a second
Speaker 1: generation UM Latino American kids who, ironically, because of the
Speaker 1: war effort, were latch key kids. Their parents were off
Speaker 1: working the night shift UM for war production and they
Speaker 1: were basically left to them their own devices. They called
Speaker 1: themselves twenty four hour orphans, the first latch key kids
Speaker 1: and um. They were also arguably the first rebels, and
Speaker 1: out of their emergence in America, UM came the whole
Speaker 1: concept of juvenile delinquency. Yeah, I love that one quote
Speaker 1: from Octavio pass Can I read that. He said the
Speaker 1: zoot suit was a symbol of love and joy or
Speaker 1: horror and loathing, an embodiment of liberty, of disorder, of
Speaker 1: the forbidden. So it was the single fashion item was
Speaker 1: at the same time asserting your independence and individuality as
Speaker 1: well as what white folk saw as thumb in their nose,
Speaker 1: the white man. Basically, Um, and I guess that's exactly
Speaker 1: what they were doing, because, as you said, like they
Speaker 1: weren't necessarily wearing the zoos suit as a statement. They
Speaker 1: weren't anti war protesters, but it was more like, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm sick of you racist white people, and
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not going to hide my identity. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to try to blend in. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: go back to my traditional roots from Mexico because I
Speaker 1: wasn't born here, but I'm not gonna, you know, join
Speaker 1: the service and wear an American suit like like. So
Speaker 1: this is this was the compromise, and it ticked white
Speaker 1: people off like crazy, especially in Los Angeles. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: at the time, in southern California, there was an enormous
Speaker 1: presence of UM service manager who were waiting to ship
Speaker 1: out to the Pacific Theater from California. Yeah, and they were,
Speaker 1: you know, rubbing elbows with these guys that a lot
Speaker 1: of people thought were gang members and zoot suitors, and
Speaker 1: they rubbed elbows not in a very good way either,
Speaker 1: which you know, ultimately led to the zoot Suit riots.
Speaker 1: But there were some pretty striking events that led up
Speaker 1: to that NTE summer. So one of the things you
Speaker 1: said you mentioned was that they were were getting negative press, right,
Speaker 1: So people in zoos suits were associated with things like um. Uh,
Speaker 1: let me see quote. Um, the record already reveals killing
Speaker 1: stabbings in cases of innocent women having been molested by
Speaker 1: zoot suit gangsters. That's from the Los Angeles Examiner. And
Speaker 1: uh the article was titled police must clean up l
Speaker 1: a hoodlumism, which is not a word, right, but so
Speaker 1: so there's this joint effort of um just general racism
Speaker 1: among whites in the in the general public UM, and
Speaker 1: servicemen waiting to be deployed specifically, and the Los Angeles
Speaker 1: media kind of fanning the flames, that's right. And then
Speaker 1: the Sleepy Lagoon murder happened. The Sleepy Lagoon case Sleepy Lagoon,
Speaker 1: Josh was the reservoir by the l A River. It's
Speaker 1: not there anymore. Is that fascinting? It's like a plastics
Speaker 1: plant there now there's no reservoir. Yes, so don't go
Speaker 1: looking for it. Even though they said it's roughly it
Speaker 1: was at fifty Slaws and Boulevard in Maywood. I know
Speaker 1: where that is, actually. I think it's on the way
Speaker 1: to the airport. Uh So the Sleepy Lagoon case. UM.
Speaker 1: At the time, Mexican Americans were denied access to public
Speaker 1: pools and swimming holes and stuff like that, so they
Speaker 1: used Sleepy Lagoon as a big hangout where they would
Speaker 1: go and listen to music and swim and have a
Speaker 1: good time. Um. In August to n uh, the body
Speaker 1: of Jose Diaz was found at this reservoir. And what
Speaker 1: I gathered there was a big party, like a big
Speaker 1: house party, where a fight broke out and one guy
Speaker 1: ended up getting killed. And as a result, they rounded
Speaker 1: up three to four hundred Mexican American youths, had a
Speaker 1: corrupt trial where they basically denied the many civil rights,
Speaker 1: cooked up evidence, had no evidence, had no physical evidence,
Speaker 1: had no witnesses, nothing of the sort, and they basically
Speaker 1: pinned that murder on twelve guys. Is that right? Nine kids? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they railroaded nine with no evidence that the guy
Speaker 1: had even been murdered. And eventually the Sleepy Lagoon Defense
Speaker 1: Committee and the U. S. District Court of Appeals overturned
Speaker 1: that as a miscarriage of justice. Right, but the damage
Speaker 1: was already done. Yeah, and his killer, incidentally, was never found.
Speaker 1: They never singled anyone out, which is sad. That's kind
Speaker 1: of lost a lot of times, I think. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, you can't just cook up a case
Speaker 1: against dudes that were there and say that they did
Speaker 1: it exactly. So Um. The press attention that the Sleepy
Speaker 1: Lagoon case received just fan the flames further and further. Um.
Speaker 1: And then uh in June no May of Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: when things really started to take a term for the worst.
Speaker 1: That's right, UM. I guess about a dozen servicemen I
Speaker 1: think Navy boys were um down in East l A.
Speaker 1: And uh, a few of him approached some girls. One
Speaker 1: of them kept walking, and the one that kept walking
Speaker 1: past a group of pouchos who were wearing zoot suits
Speaker 1: and when when he passed um, one of them apparently
Speaker 1: raised his hand and what the guy took as a
Speaker 1: threatening manner, So the serviceman grabbed his arm, and right
Speaker 1: after that everything went black because somebody knocked him over
Speaker 1: the back of his head with something and he fell
Speaker 1: and broke his jaw in two places. Okay, the other
Speaker 1: guy to see this, the other guy to see it,
Speaker 1: but before they even react, the the pouchos jump them,
Speaker 1: and these eleven other servicemen fight their way out and
Speaker 1: fight their way over to where the guy is laying
Speaker 1: the guy with who's knocked out with the broken jaw
Speaker 1: and him and get him out of there. So this
Speaker 1: is not this is not bode well for um Mexican
Speaker 1: American white relations in Los Angeles. A few days after that,
Speaker 1: like revenge is on the mind of everybody after news
Speaker 1: of this gets out, Yeah, big time, especially in the
Speaker 1: mid military community. And basically sort of the same thing
Speaker 1: happened main Street East l A on June three eleven.
Speaker 1: Sailors got off a bus and there were words with
Speaker 1: a gang of young Mexicans. And when I say gang,
Speaker 1: I should say group, and we shouldn't say necessarily Mexicans.
Speaker 1: The likelihood was that they were Mexicans and the authorities,
Speaker 1: but there they were Latino Americans, Okay. I tried to
Speaker 1: get to the whole bottom of the word Chicano as well.
Speaker 1: I know hispanic is from Ronald Reagan, is it? And
Speaker 1: it's basically it insinuates that everybody from Central or Latin
Speaker 1: America or South America comes from Hispaniola. Well, and what
Speaker 1: I found from Chicano was that it was a derogatory
Speaker 1: term early on, very negative, but it meant specifically Mexican
Speaker 1: American and then later I believe they some some of
Speaker 1: them chose to embrace that word and pride. Yeah there
Speaker 1: was sixties. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I don't know where
Speaker 1: it stands today, so let's just say it as watched
Speaker 1: ska mm hmmm. So they ran into this group of
Speaker 1: young Latinos dressed in zoot suits, gotten an argument. The sailors,
Speaker 1: of course claimed that they were jumped, although it's unclear
Speaker 1: exactly how it started, and the l A p D
Speaker 1: responded and with a group of off duty officers and
Speaker 1: on duty officers, officers calling themselves the Vengeance Squad, and
Speaker 1: they basically took it upon themselves to clean up the
Speaker 1: streets of East l A to the cops rough house style.
Speaker 1: The cops, including off duty cops, took on the name
Speaker 1: the Vengeance Squad and went down to the Latin American Quarters,
Speaker 1: Latino American Quarters and just started beating people up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this really really set off what would be known
Speaker 1: as the zoot Suit Riots. The next day, on June four,
Speaker 1: about two hundred U. S. Navy servicemen jumped in a
Speaker 1: bunch of taxis went to East l A. And a caravan, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and a caravan like a mob essentially and started beating
Speaker 1: up Mexican kids, twelve and thirteen year old boys, clubbing them,
Speaker 1: stripping them of their clothes, burning their clothes those That
Speaker 1: was the first group they encountered, and a bunch of
Speaker 1: adults tried to intervene. They got Club two. Then after that,
Speaker 1: it wasn't just people wearing zoot suits. It was any
Speaker 1: Latino American that they saw. They stormed movie theaters, they
Speaker 1: stormed bars, they stormed like and yeah, they pulled them
Speaker 1: off the street cars. Yeah, they and black guys got
Speaker 1: caught up in it too. African American guy on on
Speaker 1: the street car. And I think it wasn't Watts m
Speaker 1: who was pulled off and beat into a pulp by
Speaker 1: servicemen just because he happened to be sitting there and
Speaker 1: was black. It was literally a riot and it was
Speaker 1: perpetrated by white servicemen for several days. It was known
Speaker 1: as the zoot Suit Riots. Cops were there, but they
Speaker 1: had orders to not arrest any of the servicemen, so
Speaker 1: they were kind of given carte blanche for a few days.
Speaker 1: So for a few days. Finally the Los Angeles City
Speaker 1: Council comes to it, since its in bans the presence
Speaker 1: of any servicemen um in that area of Los Angeles
Speaker 1: and issues in ordinance whereby zoots suits are prohibited. And
Speaker 1: in the end a hundred and fifty people were injured
Speaker 1: in the riots. Police arrested more than five hundred Latinos
Speaker 1: on charges ranging from riding to vagrancy. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if any servicemen were arrested. I think a bagel
Speaker 1: number servicemen is probably a good guess. I couldn't find any.
Speaker 1: Let's not say it didn't happen, but my feelings it
Speaker 1: was probably zero. And they, you know, the local press
Speaker 1: got ahold of this and called it a quote cleansing
Speaker 1: effect and said it was a pretty great thing went
Speaker 1: on in the city, when in fact it was one
Speaker 1: of the darkest, some of the darkest days of Los
Speaker 1: Angeles in their history. Pretty sad it is. It's pretty
Speaker 1: sad and strange story. Yeah, do you, I mean, is
Speaker 1: there anything else do this? Um? No, I don't. The
Speaker 1: aftermath is, oh, I'll sell you. One interesting thing from
Speaker 1: the article was that years later, young Russian Soviet UH
Speaker 1: teenagers would wear zoot suits as an act of defiance
Speaker 1: against communist Against communism, so this article of clothing, this
Speaker 1: fashion statement, was a lot more than that. It's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: And this is one of those weird moments in history
Speaker 1: where it's not just like, did you know the zoot
Speaker 1: suit caused this riot? And then you find out that
Speaker 1: it didn't. Really, this genuinely started it. This was part
Speaker 1: of this made um. These the pouchos easily identified targets.
Speaker 1: The whole reason they were wearing it was out of defiance,
Speaker 1: and it just irked the establishment. The zoot suit caused
Speaker 1: these riots. It's crazy. It is crazy, um and it
Speaker 1: had another lasting legacy, If I may it um it
Speaker 1: juvenile delinquency. The whole concept of that coming out of
Speaker 1: this area and this era, um I believe, gave rise
Speaker 1: to the like a slew of great movies, Rebel without
Speaker 1: a Cause, The Wild Ones and If I May I
Speaker 1: was a teenage werewolf starring Michael Landon who was a
Speaker 1: character settled with a terrible affliction of throwing milk. So
Speaker 1: there's this little clip. I would like to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I put you out of fight three times myself in
Speaker 1: the last month. You're just lucky to want any formal complaints.
Speaker 1: The time before this and the supermarket. It was the
Speaker 1: checker's mistake. Yeah, but you didn't even give him a
Speaker 1: chance to rectify. At Boom, You throw a cart in
Speaker 1: the milk right at him. It contained bowline growth hormone,
Speaker 1: and he turned into a giant cow. So that was
Speaker 1: the Mystery Science Theater three thousand take of Michael Landon,
Speaker 1: of course, and his milk throwing problem, which probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: have existed had zoot suits not coming about. I've never
Speaker 1: heard of that movie. I was a teenage werewolf. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder if they picked him because of his huge
Speaker 1: mound of hair, maybe because he did look kind of werewolf.
Speaker 1: He right out of the games close. Yeah, even without
Speaker 1: the Mr Science Theater three thousand, guys um discussing it,
Speaker 1: I guess just fun to watch it is. It's it's
Speaker 1: kind of a cool movie. Yeah, I look forward podcast
Speaker 1: on the Stonewall Riots. We're gonna cover that soon too.
Speaker 1: That's another overlooked blight of American history. Yes, we like
Speaker 1: to point these out. Um. If you want to learn
Speaker 1: more about all the stuff we talked about, like Cab
Speaker 1: Callaway's jib dictionary, you should search for that on your
Speaker 1: favorite search engine. It's pretty cool. Yeah, you could also
Speaker 1: search for zoot suits Smithsonian. Um, that'll bring up a
Speaker 1: pretty cool article from I think it's pretty comprehensive. And then,
Speaker 1: of course the article on our own beloved side is
Speaker 1: excellent as well. You can type in zoot suits zo
Speaker 1: O T space S U I T S. If you
Speaker 1: haven't known what we've been talking about this entire time,
Speaker 1: you want to type that into the search bar how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. And since I said search bar, friends, neighbors,
Speaker 1: it is time for listener mail. You know, some of
Speaker 1: that jive, cab, callaway, jazz jive is still like a
Speaker 1: few of those words I recognized is still being used.
Speaker 1: It's kind of cool. Oh yeah, he established a lot
Speaker 1: of them. Um Like, I'm not nearly cool enough to
Speaker 1: speak like this on a regular basis, but that's all
Speaker 1: I want in life. Really, Like Corny came came from
Speaker 1: this era really groovy, Okay, Um, I say groovy a
Speaker 1: lot moo juice for milk? Never heard that? You have
Speaker 1: not heard that? Um, there's Buddy G as a guy Like, thanks,
Speaker 1: Buddy G. I've heard that. Um, but it's g h
Speaker 1: e okay, Um, crumb crushers for Keith nice freebe no charge,
Speaker 1: broad us free. That that came from there, give me
Speaker 1: some skin, shake hands. It all came out of this era. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we would not have one of the better parts
Speaker 1: of the movie Airplane. Yeah if if Cab Callaway and
Speaker 1: his cronies head and to come up with this. And
Speaker 1: I wish I had one cell of my body that
Speaker 1: was as cool as Cab Calloway was. He was a
Speaker 1: cool dude. You know. Many the moocher like has a
Speaker 1: lot of drug references in it. Yes, Smokey is cokey,
Speaker 1: he's like cocaine. And they talked about kicking the gong around,
Speaker 1: which apparently smoking opium and many. Actually in the extended version,
Speaker 1: Um is taken to an asylum where she dies and
Speaker 1: that's why the song ends with poor men, poor man,
Speaker 1: poor man. All right, Josh, I'm gonna call this, uh
Speaker 1: polygraph inside scoop. Oh, yeah, it's a pretty good one.
Speaker 1: Did anybody ever offer you a polygraph test? Okay, that's
Speaker 1: right now. Just listen to podcast, oh, he said, Dear Josh,
Speaker 1: Chuck and Gary, I just listened to your podcast on polygraphs.
Speaker 1: I thought my personal experience might add a little to
Speaker 1: the discussion. I was asked at one point in my
Speaker 1: life to submit to polygraph exams as a witness and
Speaker 1: a crime. I was interviewed by two different polygraphers at
Speaker 1: different times. One piece of equipment I did not hear
Speaker 1: you describe was a pad that you sit on, which
Speaker 1: registered whether or not you fidgeted during questions. I'm glad
Speaker 1: you said fidgeted instead of what. Okay. This may not
Speaker 1: be standard, though, because only the first examiner used one.
Speaker 1: I was not given a pretest like you described in
Speaker 1: either case. However, they did tell me all six of
Speaker 1: the questions in advance and uh, which is sort of
Speaker 1: like a pretest. I guess yeah, he just didn't have
Speaker 1: to answer them, and the polygrapher asked him to make
Speaker 1: sure he understood all of the six questions. The first
Speaker 1: was something like are their lights on in the room?
Speaker 1: And in both cases there were questions like are you worried?
Speaker 1: I will ask a question we did not go over uh.
Speaker 1: Then I got different versions of the same question, for example,
Speaker 1: did you see a man in a blue jacket? Or
Speaker 1: was a man wearing a blue jacket at the scene.
Speaker 1: After the questions were done, I got a break from
Speaker 1: the machine. Then I got all the questions again in
Speaker 1: a different order, followed by another break, and then another
Speaker 1: round of the same questions. Asking each question in a
Speaker 1: different way multiple times was apparently to reduce the possibility
Speaker 1: of reporting a false reading. But I did notice a
Speaker 1: couple of hinky things guys. For example, the first examiner
Speaker 1: had me closed my eyes so that the readings would
Speaker 1: be guaranteed to be in response to his questions. The
Speaker 1: second guy did not ask me to do so, and
Speaker 1: when I asked him if I should, he said it
Speaker 1: didn't matter. Pretty interesting. You also mentioned techniques for fooling
Speaker 1: a polygraph. According to a sign in the waiting room,
Speaker 1: these techniques can actually cause false positives more than false negatives,
Speaker 1: though it's probably a biased source. Although Yeah. Also they
Speaker 1: ask you to keep your feet flat on the ground
Speaker 1: through the tests, so the attack trick wouldn't be possible,
Speaker 1: And that is from matt Few and Matthew says. I,
Speaker 1: by the way, am one of the few listeners who
Speaker 1: would be thrilled if you included tribal drums in the
Speaker 1: background of your episodes. Oh yeah, with you reading listener
Speaker 1: mail throughout the whole time. Yeah, all those combined with
Speaker 1: the track of us just doing our thing right? So
Speaker 1: is that why we're hearing this right now? Weird? I
Speaker 1: hadn't noticed it. Interesting, when did that start? I don't
Speaker 1: know where it is? Well, okay, well, thank you Matthew um. Also,
Speaker 1: we want to thank our house band of tribal drummers,
Speaker 1: and we want to thank our producer Jerry for bending
Speaker 1: to our every whim. Yeah, if you have any info
Speaker 1: about a cool little piece of history that may be overlooked,
Speaker 1: we want to hear about it, and we may even
Speaker 1: podcast about it, and we may even be courteous enough
Speaker 1: to give you credit for bringing it up. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: you can tweet it to us, although it would have
Speaker 1: to be pretty short as far as history goes, but
Speaker 1: if you wanted to, it's s y SK podcast um
Speaker 1: or on Facebook at facebook dot com slash stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know. We also have a couple of spoken word
Speaker 1: albums up on iTunes under Stuff you Should Know, Super
Speaker 1: Stuff Guide. They'll cost you, but they're worth it, and
Speaker 1: you can reach us by email. Chalk That's Right at
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for My Heart radio because at the
Speaker 1: iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows,