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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. We are so excited that we are about

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Speaker 1: to set out on our very first tour. In augusten,

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Speaker 1: we will be in Atlanta, Georgia, Raleigh, North Carolina, Summerville, Massachusetts, Brooklyn,

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Speaker 1: New York, and Washington, d C. Then in October eighteen,

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Speaker 1: we will be in Seattle, Washington, Portland, Oregon, and Los

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Speaker 1: Angeles and San Francisco, California. We're hoping that this will

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Speaker 1: go really well and we can come to other cities

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Speaker 1: and places that don't end in the World Coast sometime

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Speaker 1: maybe next year. You can find out more information and

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Speaker 1: get the links to buy tickets at missed in History

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Speaker 1: dot com, slash tour That's missed in History dot com

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Speaker 1: slash tour. Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History class

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Speaker 1: from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly trying

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Speaker 1: for the last I don't even know how many months

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Speaker 1: I've had this note on my podcast shortlist that had

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Speaker 1: in all capital letters the word June followed by zoot

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Speaker 1: suit riots. But you may notice it is not June

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Speaker 1: right now. It's a little after June. It's fine, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, unless you're listening to podcasts much later than

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Speaker 1: they come out, and in somehow June of nineteen. So

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Speaker 1: we're recording this in July. It'll be August before it

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Speaker 1: comes out. I dropped that ball on this thing that

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Speaker 1: I had a note to myself to do for months

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Speaker 1: and months. But because the zoot Suit riots happened seventy

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Speaker 1: five years ago this past June, and because we got

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Speaker 1: a bunch of listener requests for it, and because I

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Speaker 1: answered a lot of those requests by saying that I

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Speaker 1: was doing it in June of I'm going to do

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Speaker 1: it now, a couple of months late. As is often

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Speaker 1: the case when we talk about riots on the show,

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Speaker 1: the name of this one is really a misnomer. It

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Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of the traits that people think

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Speaker 1: of when you a riot. There was not really much

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Speaker 1: property damage. It was more about attacking people, and it

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Speaker 1: also wasn't really about the zoot suits, although zoot suits

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Speaker 1: had come to symbolize a lot in Los Angeles and

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Speaker 1: in other parts of the United States when this happened.

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Speaker 1: So today we're going to talk about some context of

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Speaker 1: the Mexican community in Los Angeles and the nineteen forties,

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Speaker 1: as well as a murder that became a major precursor

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Speaker 1: to this mass violence. And then we will talk about

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Speaker 1: the violence itself. Okay, So to start it off, we're

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Speaker 1: gonna talk about Spain actively colonizing what's now California starting

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Speaker 1: in the late seventeenth century, and the region was under

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Speaker 1: Spanish control until the end of the Mexican War of

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Speaker 1: Independence in eighteen twenty one, at which point it became

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Speaker 1: a part of Mexico. After the Mexican American War ended

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Speaker 1: in eighteen forty eight, Mexico seeded a huge swath of

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Speaker 1: land in the southwest to the United States, including what

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Speaker 1: would become California. California became the thirty first state on

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Speaker 1: September nine, eighteen fifty. We talked more about the history

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Speaker 1: of immigration between Mexico and the United States and our

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Speaker 1: episode on the Brissero program, So we're not going to

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Speaker 1: walk through all of that again today. But the border

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Speaker 1: between these two nations wasn't particularly regulated until the nineteen teens.

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Speaker 1: There were several waves of immigration from Mexico to the

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Speaker 1: United States, including refugees fleeing the Mexican Revolution which started

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Speaker 1: in nineteen ten. So by the nineteen forties, when the

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Speaker 1: zoot Suit riots took place. The Mexican community in the

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Speaker 1: southwestern United States included immigrants as well as people of

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Speaker 1: Mexican ancestry whose families had been there since way before

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Speaker 1: the state of California even existed. In Los Angeles and

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Speaker 1: other cities, the Mexican population overwhelmingly lived in tight knit

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Speaker 1: communities known as barrios, from the Spanish word for neighborhood,

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Speaker 1: and these neighborhoods evolved through a range of social and

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Speaker 1: economic conditions, as well as discriminatory housing policies and employment

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Speaker 1: and lending practices. Basically, the same policies that enforced segregation

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Speaker 1: of black residents in other parts of the country enforced

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Speaker 1: segregation of Mexican and other Hispanic and Latino residents in

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Speaker 1: the American Southwest. The barrios in Los Angeles included really

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Speaker 1: densely populated urban neighborhoods, as well as jabez Ravine, which

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Speaker 1: had been home to a predominantly Mexican population going back

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Speaker 1: into the middle of the eighteen hundreds. Because of its

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Speaker 1: steep terrain, parts of the jabez Ravine were almost rural.

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Speaker 1: Poverty was widespread in these neighborhoods. The housing was frequently

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Speaker 1: substandard and overcrowded, and often managed by predatory landlords. While

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Speaker 1: the Anglo community tended to view the barrios as slums

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Speaker 1: or eyesores, the people who were actually living there had

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Speaker 1: extremely tight knit relationships with one another. There was a

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Speaker 1: simultaneous mix of intense neighborhood and cultural pride and social

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Speaker 1: and economic isolation from the rest of the city. That

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Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily the case for the young people living in

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Speaker 1: the barrios, though. In the nineteen forties. Young people in

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Speaker 1: the barrios were predominantly the children of Mexican immigrants who

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Speaker 1: had been born in the United States and were citizens,

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Speaker 1: and many of them felt like outsiders both within and

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Speaker 1: outside of their neighborhoods. They were being educated in English

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Speaker 1: speaking American schools, and a lot of them wanted to

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Speaker 1: experience life outside the barrio, or even leave the barrio.

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Speaker 1: This really put them at odds with their parents, who

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Speaker 1: tended to be traditional and conservative. These second generation Mexican

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Speaker 1: Americans were also subject to huge pressure to assimilate with

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Speaker 1: Anglo life from outside the barrio, and huge pressure to

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Speaker 1: maintain a strong sense of Mexican cultural identity from within

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Speaker 1: it and outside of their neighborhoods. They faced discrimination because

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Speaker 1: of their ethnicity, and sometimes outright exclusion from the types

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Speaker 1: of activity that would otherwise be completely typical for a teenager.

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Speaker 1: Economic hardship, social isolation, exclusion from recreation and social activities

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Speaker 1: in a sense of being an outsider are all factors

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Speaker 1: that are cited as reasons why young people join gangs,

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Speaker 1: and this happened in California in the nineteen thirties and

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Speaker 1: forties as well, although we should make it really clear

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Speaker 1: that a lot of the gangs in question were more

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Speaker 1: like tight knit neighborhood clicks than criminal organizations. Rivalries between

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Speaker 1: young people from different barrios could become really intense, though.

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Speaker 1: I mean, there was definitely crime, and there definitely work

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Speaker 1: criminal organizations, but overwhelmingly crimes were being committed by adults,

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Speaker 1: not by adolescents. And the panic that we're about to

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Speaker 1: talk about was about this nefarious specter of violent criminal

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Speaker 1: teens and that that was really not what was going on.

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Speaker 1: As Tracy just alluded to. In the media, these Mexican

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Speaker 1: American youth were portrayed as violent and incorrigible delinquents. This

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Speaker 1: became even more true in August of nineteen forty two,

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Speaker 1: following a murder at a reservoir known as Sleepy Lagoon.

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Speaker 1: Mexican youth used Sleepy Lagoon as a swimming hole because

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Speaker 1: they weren't allowed to use the public swimming pools, and

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Speaker 1: on August first, nineteen forty two, a fight broke out

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Speaker 1: after a party near the reservoir and twenty two year

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Speaker 1: old jose I Diaz was beaten and left for dead.

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Speaker 1: Diaz had recently enlisted in the U. S Army and

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Speaker 1: it was his last weekend before he was scheduled to leave.

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Speaker 1: He died not long after reaching the hospital. In response

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Speaker 1: to this murder, law enforcement rounded up roughly six hundred

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Speaker 1: people in a citywide dragnet. Most of them were Mexican

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Speaker 1: American and most of them were teenagers. Ultimately, twenty two

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Speaker 1: teens and young men from the thirty eight Street neighborhood

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Speaker 1: were arrested on murder charges, and seventeen of them were indicted.

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Speaker 1: They were between the ages of fourteen and twenty two,

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Speaker 1: and they were side in the largest mass trial in

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Speaker 1: California history. This trial was a huge miscarriage of justice.

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Speaker 1: The judge Charles Williams. Freaky was known as Sam Quentin

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Speaker 1: Freaky because of how often he sentenced people to prison

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Speaker 1: there and during the trial he consistently sided with the prosecution.

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Speaker 1: The prosecution was making the case that the defendants were

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Speaker 1: a violent street gang, and to that end, the judge

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Speaker 1: refused to allow them to get clean clothes or have

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Speaker 1: their hair cut, because their clothing, their hair, and their

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Speaker 1: disheveled appearance was evidence of their gang status. We're going

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Speaker 1: to get more into clothing in a bit, but just no.

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Speaker 1: They basically kept them in a state that would keep

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Speaker 1: the public mindset completely confirmed that they were everything horrible.

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Speaker 1: These people were saying, yeah, even if when they originally

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Speaker 1: were arrested they had been wearing neatly attired clothing, they

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Speaker 1: were in these same clothes for the length of these proceedings,

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Speaker 1: so they just came more and more disheveled. The defense

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Speaker 1: also had seventeen different defendants to deal with, and the

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Speaker 1: judge continually ruled that their attempts to confer with their

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Speaker 1: clients were disruptive. The defendants were ultimately seated in two

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Speaker 1: rows facing the jury, physically separated from their attorneys. Some

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Speaker 1: of the defendants also really did not take this trial seriously.

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Speaker 1: Some of them had never even met the victim and

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Speaker 1: seemed to just assume that they were definitely going to

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Speaker 1: be acquitted because clearly they were not involved. That meant

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Speaker 1: that an all white jury was constantly face to face

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Speaker 1: with a bunch of teenagers, some of whom were chatting

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Speaker 1: with each other and rolling their eyes and generally acting

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Speaker 1: like teenagers who weren't really being supervised in the courtroom.

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Speaker 1: The trial lasted until January of nineteen forty three. In

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Speaker 1: the end, five of the defendants were acquitted. The rest

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Speaker 1: were found guilty of a number of crimes and sentenced

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Speaker 1: to between six months and life in prison, depending on

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Speaker 1: the charge. During these proceedings, girls and young women from

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Speaker 1: the thirty Street neighborhood had also been called to testify

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Speaker 1: and to participate in the investigation, but they refused to cooperate. Afterward,

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Speaker 1: they were taken from their parents custody, made wards the state,

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Speaker 1: and placed in a reform school called Ventura School for Girls,

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Speaker 1: and they remained there until they were legally adults. This

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Speaker 1: trial and the news reporting that surrounded it, continued to

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Speaker 1: inflame tensions between the Mexican and Anglo communities in Los Angeles.

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Speaker 1: News reports described the kids from the thirty A Street

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Speaker 1: gang as a violent gang, and the whole incident was

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Speaker 1: used as evidence that Mexican use were inherently criminal and dangerous.

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Speaker 1: Mexican US gangs were blamed for all kinds of crime

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Speaker 1: and social ills. The idea of a dangerous Mexican criminal

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Speaker 1: element spread among the Anglo population. Rather than doing anything

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Speaker 1: about the social and economic conditions and the brios, lawmakers

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Speaker 1: and media instead used these young people as evidence of

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Speaker 1: a nefarious criminal element that needed to be dealt with,

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Speaker 1: and Mexican American youth, who already felt like outsiders, spelt

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Speaker 1: even more targeted by an obviously unfair legal and law

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Speaker 1: enforcement system. After two years of advocacy by the Sleepy

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Speaker 1: Lagoon Defense Committee, these convictions were overturned on appeal in

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Speaker 1: nine four, although the charges were never formally cleared. The

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Speaker 1: appellate court found a number of problems with that original trial,

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Speaker 1: from inadmissible evidence being admitted, to inadequate defense representation, to

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Speaker 1: the judge's treatment of the most vocal of the defense attorneys. Today,

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Speaker 1: the murder of Jose A Diaz is still officially unsolved.

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Speaker 1: Most of the young men who had been convicted of

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Speaker 1: his murder were still in prison when the zoo Suit

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Speaker 1: Riots happened. We're going to get into the riots, and

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Speaker 1: before that, into the zoot suits after a sponsor break.

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Speaker 1: The zoot Suit Riots were named for a style of

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Speaker 1: clothing that was popular among Mexican American youth in Los

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Speaker 1: Angeles in the nineteen thirties and forties. The etymology of

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Speaker 1: zoot suit is a little unclear. You'll see a lot

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Speaker 1: of different places of like this is the where the

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Speaker 1: term zoot suit comes from, and they all kind of

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Speaker 1: contradict each other. It's also unclear exactly who made the

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Speaker 1: first one. But these suits grew out of jazz culture

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Speaker 1: in African American communities. In other parts of the United States,

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Speaker 1: they were really popular amongst swing dancers because the cut

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Speaker 1: and the volume of the fabric really accentuated the dancing.

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Speaker 1: Zoot Suits became popular among minority communities all across the

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Speaker 1: United States. Whichever minority community was living in a particular

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Speaker 1: place was probably also wearing zoot suits. Even though we

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Speaker 1: are talking about Mexican Americans in this episode, these suits

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Speaker 1: were culturally very important in these other communities. They are

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Speaker 1: part of a lot of literature and essays from the

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirties and forties, especially by Hispanic and black writers.

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Speaker 1: Among Mexican Americans, zoot suits were one part of a

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Speaker 1: counterculture movement known as Patuco. Patuco incorporated zoot suits along

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Speaker 1: with music and dance and an inventive sling called calo,

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Speaker 1: which combines Spanish, English, and jazz inspired words, as well

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Speaker 1: as words from other influences. Zoot Suits were the most

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Speaker 1: recognizable hallmark of the Pachuco man. These are suits with

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Speaker 1: high waisted pants, suspenders, and very wide legs that then

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Speaker 1: are pegged at the ankle. The corresponding coats are very

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Speaker 1: long and have exaggerated broad shoulders. Men usually wore them

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Speaker 1: with a coordinating pork pie hat and a distinctive watch chain.

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Speaker 1: Some Pachucas are women in this culture, wore full zoot

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Speaker 1: suits with the pants. Others paired them with short skirts,

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Speaker 1: big hair, and bright makeup, regardless of which she was doing, though,

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Speaker 1: women who dressed this way were pushing gender norms. Wearing

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Speaker 1: the pants was thought of as too masculine, but the

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Speaker 1: short skirts and the loud makeup were regarded as too

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Speaker 1: aggressively feminine and too sexual. To both Anglos and the

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Speaker 1: Mexican parents of these youths, Pachuco wasn't a culture. It

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Speaker 1: was just another word for punk or thug. Mexican parents

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Speaker 1: worried that their children were going to quote become pachucos,

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Speaker 1: and among Anglos, part of the response to this culture

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Speaker 1: might be summed up as how dare you zoos? Suits

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Speaker 1: were expensive, and news reporting about the style tended to

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Speaker 1: hype up the cost. But Chucos took great care in

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Speaker 1: their appearance. They walked with a swagger, and they took

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Speaker 1: pride in being able to dance and going out and

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Speaker 1: having a good time. So from Anglos there was this

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Speaker 1: whole element of how dare you spend so much on

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Speaker 1: a suit when you should be living in poverty? How

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Speaker 1: dare you walk with that swagger when you live in

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Speaker 1: a slum. Caesar Chavez, who co founded the National farm

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Speaker 1: Workers Association with the Laura Sueta, described it this way.

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Speaker 1: Quote we were a minority group of a minority group,

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Speaker 1: so in a way we were challenging cops by being

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Speaker 1: with two or three friends and dressing sharp. But in

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Speaker 1: those days, I was prepared for any sacrifice to be

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Speaker 1: able to dress the way I wanted to dress. I

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Speaker 1: thought it looked sharp and meat and it was the style.

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Speaker 1: And to circle back around to the Sleepy Lagoon murder case,

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Speaker 1: the defendants were part of a culture that valued dressing

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Speaker 1: well and taking care of their clothing and appearance. But again,

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Speaker 1: if you recall, they were forced to wear the same,

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Speaker 1: increasingly shabby clothes for the duration of their trial. So

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Speaker 1: for Patuco's this one outfit, the zoot suit had a

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Speaker 1: whole lot of adolescent rebelliousness and community pride and Mexican

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Speaker 1: American culture all rolled up into it, and in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen forties, wearing one became an overtly political act. In

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Speaker 1: another way as well, during World War Two, fabric was

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Speaker 1: tightly rationed, and zoot suits used a lot of fabric.

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Speaker 1: The Wartime Productions Board limited the use of wool in

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Speaker 1: March of ninety two, and it banned a number of

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Speaker 1: extra flourishes on clothing that required more fabric, including cuffs, pleats,

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Speaker 1: pocket flaps, and vests. Zoot Suits were pretty much all

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Speaker 1: extra fabric. Having made one, I will wholly endorse this fact.

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Speaker 1: They take up a lot of yardage um and at

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Speaker 1: first tailor's got around this by making zoot suits out

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Speaker 1: of other fabrics besides wool, but in October of nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty two, the WPB specifically banned those as well. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't illegal to wear a zoot suit, but it was

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Speaker 1: illegal to make them, although bootleg tailors continued to do

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Speaker 1: it anyway. The City of Los Angeles also debated banning

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Speaker 1: the wearing of zoot suits that year, but ultimately did not.

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Speaker 1: By nineteen forty three, zoot suits were very closely associated

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Speaker 1: with crime and with juvenile delinquency. We talked before the

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Speaker 1: break about the widespread media coverage of Mexican youth portraying

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Speaker 1: them as incorrigible criminals. Tied to that stereotype was the

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Speaker 1: clothing that they were wearing. Under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's

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Speaker 1: Good Neighbor Policy, which was meant to improve American relationships

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Speaker 1: with Latin America, news outlets in some cities stopped using

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Speaker 1: the word Mexican and crime reporting. Instead, they were writing

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00:17:24,280 --> 00:17:28,800
Speaker 1: things like zoot suited thugs, which everyone read as basically

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Speaker 1: a Mexican gangster in a zoot suit. This use of

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Speaker 1: language didn't really do anything to shield Mexicans from the

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Speaker 1: perception that they were criminals, and it did reinforce the

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00:17:39,240 --> 00:17:44,119
Speaker 1: connection between zoot suits and crime. On June twod ninety three,

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Speaker 1: an article in The l A Times called the zoot

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Speaker 1: suit quote a uniform of delinquency. Calls to police were

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Speaker 1: common just because someone in a zoot suit was inherently suspicious. Simultaneously,

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Speaker 1: in the early nineteen forties, there were a lot of

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Speaker 1: service members from the U. S Military in Los Angeles

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Speaker 1: at any given time. Some of them were passing through,

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Speaker 1: some were preparing to deploy somewhere on shore leave, and

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Speaker 1: some were training at the Naval and Marine Corps Reserve

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Speaker 1: Center in Chavez Ravine, also known as the Naval Reserve Armory.

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Speaker 1: This facility opened in a predominantly Mexican part of the

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Speaker 1: city in nineteen forty. Especially on weekends, the number of

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Speaker 1: military personnel in Los Angeles could swell to about fifty thousand.

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Speaker 1: A lot of these servicemen felt like the zoot suitors

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Speaker 1: were deliberately antagonizing them. They were wearing unpatriotic clothing that

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00:18:38,359 --> 00:18:41,800
Speaker 1: flew in the face of wartime rationing, and on top

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00:18:41,840 --> 00:18:44,240
Speaker 1: of that was the perception that the zoos suitors were

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00:18:44,280 --> 00:18:47,000
Speaker 1: also draft dodgers, and while that may have been the

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00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:49,720
Speaker 1: case for some, a lot of the Mexican youths who

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00:18:49,720 --> 00:18:53,120
Speaker 1: were part of the Patuco culture were too young to enlist.

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00:18:53,840 --> 00:18:56,399
Speaker 1: There were also stories of men wearing their zoot suits

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00:18:56,440 --> 00:18:59,600
Speaker 1: when they reported in and being turned down for military

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00:18:59,640 --> 00:19:02,560
Speaker 1: service because of the perception that they would be troublemakers.

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00:19:03,119 --> 00:19:06,080
Speaker 1: And of course, there were plenty of Mexican Americans serving

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Speaker 1: in the armed forces, although numbers were not clear because

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Speaker 1: their numbers were not separated out from the white population.

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Speaker 1: At the same time, there was also a lot of

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Speaker 1: overall anti immigrant sentiment going on, even though most of

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Speaker 1: the young people being targeted here were American citizens of

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Speaker 1: Mexican descent. What we're talking about today was happening in

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Speaker 1: parallel with the signing of Executive Order ninety sixty six

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Speaker 1: and the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans from the West

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Speaker 1: coast of the United States. Almost two thirds of the

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Speaker 1: people who were incarcerated under that executive order were also

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Speaker 1: American citizens. Fights between service members and Mexican civilian use

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00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:51,960
Speaker 1: became increasingly common in late nineteen forty two. In December,

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Speaker 1: they were reported at a rate of about one per week.

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Speaker 1: By the spring of nineteen forty three, that had increased

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00:19:58,119 --> 00:20:02,520
Speaker 1: to between two and three fights day. Each fight became

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00:20:02,600 --> 00:20:06,440
Speaker 1: justification for the next one, and sometimes they erupted into

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00:20:06,560 --> 00:20:11,560
Speaker 1: mass violence. It's not totally clear what caused these ongoing

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00:20:11,640 --> 00:20:15,920
Speaker 1: clashes between service members and civilians of Mexican descent to

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00:20:16,320 --> 00:20:20,200
Speaker 1: escalate and to mass violence. According to a number of sources,

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Speaker 1: it was a fight between eleven sailors and a group

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Speaker 1: of zoot suitors on May nineteen forty three, which left

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Speaker 1: one sailor with a broken jaw. These riots started on

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Speaker 1: June three, and we're at least in theory and retaliation

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Speaker 1: for that earlier fight. And we're going to get into

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Speaker 1: the details of the zoot suit riots after we first

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Speaker 1: pause for a break where we hear from one of

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Speaker 1: the sponsors that keeps his show going. On June three,

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Speaker 1: a group of about fifty sailors left the Naval and

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Speaker 1: Marine Corps Reserve Center in Chavez Ravine. They were are

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Speaker 1: with makeshift weapons and they made their way through the

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00:21:02,760 --> 00:21:07,480
Speaker 1: neighborhoods near the armory looking for a fight. They specifically

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00:21:07,520 --> 00:21:11,600
Speaker 1: looked for and attacked anyone wearing a zoot suit This

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00:21:11,800 --> 00:21:15,080
Speaker 1: was the first night of the zoot suit riots. June

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00:21:15,119 --> 00:21:19,160
Speaker 1: four was a Friday, and that evening sailors began hiring

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00:21:19,240 --> 00:21:22,520
Speaker 1: cabs to take them into the barrios. They treated this

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00:21:22,600 --> 00:21:25,600
Speaker 1: like a seek and destroy mission, seeking out and beating

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00:21:25,680 --> 00:21:29,320
Speaker 1: Mexican youth, especially the ones in zoot suits, but they

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00:21:29,359 --> 00:21:32,800
Speaker 1: also attacked people who were not in zoot suits. Five

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00:21:32,880 --> 00:21:36,439
Speaker 1: victims were hospitalized. Most of the sailors had returned to

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00:21:36,480 --> 00:21:39,080
Speaker 1: base by the time shore patrol and the police arrived,

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00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:41,800
Speaker 1: and there were only a few arrests, and those were

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00:21:41,840 --> 00:21:46,600
Speaker 1: mainly Mexican victims. On June five, the scene was much

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00:21:46,680 --> 00:21:50,200
Speaker 1: the same, with the riots spreading further into East Los Angeles.

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Speaker 1: The attacks targeted men, especially the ones who quote looked

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Speaker 1: like pachucos. Has included a group of musicians who were

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Speaker 1: leaving Aztec Recording Company. On June seven, news reports spread

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Speaker 1: that zoos suitors were planning a coordinated effort to kill police.

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Speaker 1: Based on what evidence, we have no idea. It was

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00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:11,560
Speaker 1: kind of just a rumor as far as we know.

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Speaker 1: We don't know why that was being reported as though

359
00:22:14,960 --> 00:22:17,240
Speaker 1: it was a real thing. That's the question of a

360
00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:20,919
Speaker 1: lot of the reporting that happened with this, and in response,

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00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:24,600
Speaker 1: thousands of servicemen came to downtown Los Angeles, some of

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00:22:24,640 --> 00:22:28,040
Speaker 1: them from as far away as San Diego. Cab drivers

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00:22:28,119 --> 00:22:31,879
Speaker 1: offered the servicemen free rides, and they attacked people not

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Speaker 1: only in Mexican neighborhoods, but also in the predominantly black

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00:22:35,640 --> 00:22:39,359
Speaker 1: neighborhood of Watts. June seventh was really the peak of

366
00:22:39,400 --> 00:22:42,119
Speaker 1: the zoot suit riots, and throughout this sort of war,

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00:22:42,800 --> 00:22:45,600
Speaker 1: servicemen attacked and beat up young men in zoot suits.

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00:22:46,040 --> 00:22:49,080
Speaker 1: They were often armed with things like clubs and tire irons.

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00:22:49,520 --> 00:22:52,360
Speaker 1: In some cases, they stripped their victims down to their

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00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:56,159
Speaker 1: underwear in the streets and then sometimes set fire to

371
00:22:56,240 --> 00:23:00,000
Speaker 1: their zoot suits in front of them. Sometimes the soldiers

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00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:04,040
Speaker 1: cut off their targets hair. They also invaded people's homes,

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00:23:04,119 --> 00:23:07,160
Speaker 1: and they stormed movie theaters to drag Mexican and other

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00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:11,200
Speaker 1: minority patrons out into the street and attack them. While

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00:23:11,200 --> 00:23:14,840
Speaker 1: there were definitely cases of Mexicans and other minorities fighting

376
00:23:14,880 --> 00:23:20,760
Speaker 1: back or like taunting the sailors, like being generally aggressive,

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00:23:20,840 --> 00:23:24,920
Speaker 1: this was not a case of two factions coming together

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00:23:24,960 --> 00:23:29,679
Speaker 1: and fighting. The servicemen were definitely the instigators here, and

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00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:32,879
Speaker 1: law enforcement did little to intervene In all of this.

380
00:23:33,760 --> 00:23:36,639
Speaker 1: Officers often arrived on the scene after the violence was

381
00:23:36,720 --> 00:23:40,560
Speaker 1: over and then arrested the victims instead of the perpetrators,

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00:23:40,600 --> 00:23:44,840
Speaker 1: purportedly for their own protection. Servicemen who were picked up

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00:23:44,840 --> 00:23:47,760
Speaker 1: by law enforcement were typically taken back to base or

384
00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:50,439
Speaker 1: just taken a few blocks away from the violence and

385
00:23:50,560 --> 00:23:55,320
Speaker 1: dropped off and otherwise faced no consequences. There were also

386
00:23:55,400 --> 00:23:59,560
Speaker 1: reports of young Mexican American men turning themselves into police

387
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:03,160
Speaker 1: station and asking to be taken into custody rather than

388
00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:06,520
Speaker 1: face being the victims of violence in their own neighborhoods.

389
00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:10,359
Speaker 1: Throughout all of this, news reports generally praised the servicemen

390
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:15,240
Speaker 1: as carrying out a much needed vigilante war against uncontrollable

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00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:20,639
Speaker 1: Mexican delinquents. The Los Angeles Times read headlines like zoot

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00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:24,879
Speaker 1: suitors learn lesson in fight with servicemen. Here's how The

393
00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:28,199
Speaker 1: New York Times kicked off its reporting on June seven,

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00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:32,280
Speaker 1: quote subdued and no longer ready to do battle. Twenty

395
00:24:32,280 --> 00:24:35,320
Speaker 1: eight zoot suitors stripped of their garash clothing and with

396
00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:40,919
Speaker 1: County jail barber's hopefully eyeing their flowing ductail haircuts, languished

397
00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:44,480
Speaker 1: behind bars today after a second night of battle with

398
00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:48,960
Speaker 1: fleers and servicemen, and the next paragraph the article acknowledges

399
00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:53,000
Speaker 1: that this was quote a war declared by servicemen. First

400
00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:56,240
Speaker 1: Lady Eleanor Roosevelt wrote about the riots in her My

401
00:24:56,480 --> 00:25:00,880
Speaker 1: Day column, saying, quote, the question goes deeper than a suits.

402
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:03,800
Speaker 1: It is a racial protest. I have been worried for

403
00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:07,520
Speaker 1: a long time about the Mexican racial situation. It is

404
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:09,959
Speaker 1: a problem with roots going a long way back, and

405
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:12,879
Speaker 1: we do not always face these problems as we should.

406
00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:16,439
Speaker 1: After this appeared, the l A Times accused her of

407
00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:21,600
Speaker 1: sewing racial discord. On June eighth, the violence largely stopped

408
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:26,120
Speaker 1: because the servicemen were barred from leaving base, and downtown

409
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 1: Los Angeles was made out of bounds for soldiers and sailors.

410
00:25:30,359 --> 00:25:33,840
Speaker 1: At the same time, the official Navy position was that

411
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:38,200
Speaker 1: all of the actions by sailors were in self defense.

412
00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:42,960
Speaker 1: That was patently false. They were picking the fights themselves.

413
00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:47,440
Speaker 1: The short patrol was also given orders to arrest any

414
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:51,480
Speaker 1: member of the military whose behavior was disorderly. On the ninth,

415
00:25:51,640 --> 00:25:55,119
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution banning the

416
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:58,600
Speaker 1: public wearing of zoot suits, with fifty days in jail

417
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: as punishment. Although there had been hundreds of injuries, some

418
00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:06,120
Speaker 1: of them severe, there were no deaths during the zoot

419
00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:09,000
Speaker 1: suit riots, but the racial aspect of the violence is

420
00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:14,320
Speaker 1: obvious by the numbers. In terms of hospitalizations, about one

421
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:20,200
Speaker 1: hundred Mexican Americans suffered serious injuries compared to roughly sixteen servicemen.

422
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 1: There also would have been lots and lots of people

423
00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 1: who were hurt but didn't seek medical care. There were

424
00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:29,840
Speaker 1: also arrests of close to a hundred Mexican Americans compared

425
00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:34,440
Speaker 1: to about twenty servicemen and about thirty non Hispanic civilians.

426
00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:38,600
Speaker 1: After this was over, two committees were formed to investigate

427
00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 1: and find out the cause of the riots. One was

428
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:45,960
Speaker 1: a Citizens Committee ordered by California Governor Earl Warren. The

429
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:50,200
Speaker 1: other was an Anti American Activities investigation presided over by

430
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:53,879
Speaker 1: State Senator Jack B. Tenney, which looked for fascist and

431
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:58,040
Speaker 1: Nazi instigators. No evidence was ever found or published to

432
00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:01,800
Speaker 1: back up the whole fascists ash Nazi angle, but the

433
00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:05,440
Speaker 1: Citizens Committee report was clear quote and undertaking to deal

434
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:08,280
Speaker 1: with the cause of these outbreaks, the existence of race

435
00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:12,200
Speaker 1: prejudice cannot be ignored. In response to this, Los Angeles

436
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:15,320
Speaker 1: Mayor Fletcher Born, on the other hand, maintained that race

437
00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 1: was not a factor and continued to blame the riots

438
00:27:18,359 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 1: on the zoot suitors and on juvenile delinquents. The Citizens

439
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:25,200
Speaker 1: Committee report outlined some of the social conditions that had

440
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:28,880
Speaker 1: led to all of this. Quote, there are approximately two

441
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand persons of Mexican descent in Los

442
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:36,359
Speaker 1: Angeles County. Living conditions among the majority of these people

443
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 1: are far below the general level of the community. Housing

444
00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 1: is inadequate, Sanitation is bad and is made worse by congestion.

445
00:27:45,280 --> 00:27:49,040
Speaker 1: Recreational facilities for children are very poor, and there is

446
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:53,600
Speaker 1: insufficient supervision of the playgrounds, swimming pools, and other youth centers.

447
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:59,480
Speaker 1: Such conditions are breeding places for juvenile delinquency. The report

448
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 1: also addressed the basically ubiquitous idea that there was an

449
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 1: epidemic of juvenile delinquency, specifically among Mexican youth saying, quote,

450
00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 1: all juvenile delinquency has increased recently in Los Angeles. This

451
00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:19,280
Speaker 1: includes crimes committed by youths of Mexican origin, but the

452
00:28:19,359 --> 00:28:22,920
Speaker 1: fact is that the increase of delinquency in the case

453
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:26,439
Speaker 1: of youths of Mexican families has been less than in

454
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:30,400
Speaker 1: the case of other national or racial groups, and less

455
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:34,200
Speaker 1: than the average increase for the community. The committee also

456
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:36,800
Speaker 1: made a number of recommendations to try to address the

457
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:41,200
Speaker 1: root causes of delinquency and gang formation, better training for

458
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:45,480
Speaker 1: police officers who were working in multiracial communities, better and

459
00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 1: more widely available youth and recreation facilities in Mexican neighborhoods,

460
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:55,320
Speaker 1: an end to discrimination and segregation at public facilities. What

461
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:59,240
Speaker 1: the committee really did not investigate, though, was the actions

462
00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 1: of the Anglo servicemen and any Anglo civilians who had

463
00:29:02,840 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 1: participated in these riots. It didn't touch on the fact

464
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 1: that large numbers of servicemen were leaving their basis during

465
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 1: an actual war, that being World War Two, to go

466
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 1: and attack civilians. So even though the report included an

467
00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:21,560
Speaker 1: acknowledgement of racism as a factor in all of this,

468
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:24,480
Speaker 1: and even though it included a lot of common sense

469
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:28,000
Speaker 1: recommendations that could help the Mexican community in Los Angeles,

470
00:29:28,320 --> 00:29:31,200
Speaker 1: it really did not touch on anything that could have

471
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:35,800
Speaker 1: addressed the serviceman's decision to stage a vigilante attack on

472
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:40,240
Speaker 1: Los Angeles Mexican community. There was a whole lot of

473
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 1: this is what we should do to prevent delinquency among

474
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:46,800
Speaker 1: Mexican youth, but virtually no, this is what we should

475
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 1: do to prevent servicemen from forming a racist vigilante mob.

476
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 1: This whole incident was really formative in both the Hispanic

477
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: and the Anglo communities. It was a national news story,

478
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:00,760
Speaker 1: and for a lot of people who didn't live in

479
00:30:00,800 --> 00:30:03,800
Speaker 1: the Southwest, it was the first time that they really

480
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:07,560
Speaker 1: heard about a significant Mexican minority living in the United States,

481
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:11,160
Speaker 1: which makes it particularly unfortunate that much of the news

482
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:15,000
Speaker 1: reporting was handled in such a racist way with the

483
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:18,360
Speaker 1: Hispanic and Latino community. The Sleepy Hollow murder case and

484
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:22,120
Speaker 1: the zoot Suit riots were both precursors to the Chicano movement,

485
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 1: also called the Mexican American Civil rights movement. We've talked

486
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:28,320
Speaker 1: about some of the other events that were also part

487
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:31,960
Speaker 1: of the development of this movement, including Mendes versus Westminster,

488
00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:34,760
Speaker 1: which was a school segregation case, and the case of

489
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:38,120
Speaker 1: Maccario Garcia, who was the first Mexican national to be

490
00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:41,280
Speaker 1: awarded the Medal of Honor, who was arrested after being

491
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 1: denied service at a restaurant after returning home. There were

492
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 1: also similar incidents in other cities after the zoot Suit riots,

493
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 1: although not as massive or as widely reported as what

494
00:30:52,360 --> 00:30:55,520
Speaker 1: took place in Los Angeles, and it could have become

495
00:30:55,560 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 1: an international incident since most of the people targeted were

496
00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 1: not Mexican now tionals, and because this happened during World

497
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:07,280
Speaker 1: War Two, Mexico's diplomatic response was somewhat muted. There was

498
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:10,840
Speaker 1: also a lot of other just mass racist violence that

499
00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:14,320
Speaker 1: happened that wasn't necessarily similar to the zoot Suit Riots,

500
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:17,600
Speaker 1: but did follow in the immediate months and years after this.

501
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 1: It's also a whole other topic, but worth mentioning. Chavez

502
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 1: Ravine was emptied through a series of evictions starting in

503
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 1: nineteen forty nine, just a few years after this, with

504
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 1: the city originally saying that it was going to be

505
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:34,360
Speaker 1: redeveloped and that the evicted residents would get the first

506
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:38,600
Speaker 1: choice of the newly built homes instead. It's now the

507
00:31:38,640 --> 00:31:41,880
Speaker 1: site of Dodger Stadium. There is also a Broadway play

508
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:45,480
Speaker 1: called zoot Suit, directed by Luis Miguel Valdez that debuted

509
00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:47,800
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy nine, and it was the first play

510
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:50,880
Speaker 1: with the Chicano director on Broadway that has also been

511
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:53,440
Speaker 1: made into a film. And there's also that song by

512
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:55,840
Speaker 1: the Cherry Pop and Daddy's which were only mentioning so

513
00:31:55,880 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 1: that everyone will know that, yes, we do know that

514
00:31:58,280 --> 00:32:05,920
Speaker 1: it exists. Uh. And yeah makes it sound like a

515
00:32:05,960 --> 00:32:07,800
Speaker 1: whole lot of fun when it was not. It was

516
00:32:07,840 --> 00:32:11,479
Speaker 1: not fun at all. Uh. Do you have some listener

517
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:16,960
Speaker 1: mail for us? Sure? Do. I'm chuckling because the subject

518
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:21,920
Speaker 1: line of the email is yea for coal mining, Which

519
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 1: this isn't a sentence that you see in your email

520
00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:29,320
Speaker 1: all that often. Uh and in many contexts. Um, this

521
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:33,880
Speaker 1: is from Rochelle. Rochelle says, good morning, ladies. I've never

522
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 1: written into a podcast before, but I have been so

523
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 1: taken by your podcast I can't help myself. I have

524
00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:41,280
Speaker 1: only started listening to your podcast a couple of months ago,

525
00:32:41,360 --> 00:32:44,040
Speaker 1: but I am quickly catching up to the most recent episodes.

526
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 1: You have such a delightful, wonderful podcast that helps me

527
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 1: get through dull days at work. It's been a lifelong

528
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:54,200
Speaker 1: history buff and fun fact fiend, and your podcast is

529
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:57,000
Speaker 1: a wonderful mixture of both. For me, I would just

530
00:32:57,120 --> 00:32:59,960
Speaker 1: like to take a moment and say I love fun.

531
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:03,480
Speaker 1: In fact, fiend to return to the email I'm writing

532
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:06,000
Speaker 1: in because I've just listened to the abra Van disaster

533
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:11,360
Speaker 1: episode from November. I'm from Scranton, Pennsylvania. Before the office,

534
00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:15,280
Speaker 1: it was most famous as a coal mining area. Northeastern

535
00:33:15,320 --> 00:33:18,720
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania is the location of the largest deposit of anthracite

536
00:33:18,760 --> 00:33:21,160
Speaker 1: coal in the world. The two most common types of

537
00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 1: coal are anthracite and but too minus coal, anthracite being

538
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:28,880
Speaker 1: the rarer of the two. My grandfather on my dad's

539
00:33:28,880 --> 00:33:31,320
Speaker 1: side and my great grandfather on my mother's side were

540
00:33:31,360 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 1: coal miners. We have had our own mining disasters switched sadly,

541
00:33:35,240 --> 00:33:37,720
Speaker 1: as you said in the episode, are all the same.

542
00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:40,840
Speaker 1: I am a metal smith and for my m F

543
00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:44,840
Speaker 1: faith thesis, I created sculptures and paintings telling the stories

544
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:48,200
Speaker 1: of coal mining in northeastern Pennsylvania, with the main takeaway

545
00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:50,960
Speaker 1: being that this story is common a thousand times over

546
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 1: and being told through the lens of Scranton. Rachel then

547
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 1: ends with some episode suggestions for future episodes, and I

548
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 1: just wanted to say thanks for sending this email. If

549
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 1: you want to send us pictures of your m F

550
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:06,560
Speaker 1: faith thesis. I would be super interested in seeing that

551
00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:10,200
Speaker 1: as well. Uh so, thank you, Rochelle. If you would

552
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:12,480
Speaker 1: like to write to us about this or any other podcast,

553
00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:16,800
Speaker 1: we are at History podcast at how stuff works dot com.

554
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:19,320
Speaker 1: We're also all over social media at missed in History.

555
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:21,719
Speaker 1: That is our Facebook and our Twitter, and our Instagram

556
00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:24,279
Speaker 1: and our Pinterest. You can come to our website, which

557
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:26,120
Speaker 1: is missed in History dot com and you will find

558
00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:28,840
Speaker 1: show notes for all the episodes that Holly and I

559
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:31,120
Speaker 1: have done together, as well as the searchable archive of

560
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:33,719
Speaker 1: every episode that's ever been on this show. And you

561
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:38,120
Speaker 1: can subscribe to our podcast on Apple podcasts, Google Podcasts,

562
00:34:38,120 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 1: and wherever else you get your podcasts. For more on

563
00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:48,520
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works

564
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:54,879
Speaker 1: dot com