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Zoot Suit Riots and the Role of the Zoot Suit in Chicano Culture Rebecca Grizzle Western Oregon Universiity, [email protected]

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Zoot Suit Riots and the Role of the Zoot Suit in Chicano Culture Rebecca Grizzle Western Oregon Universiity, Grizzle13@Mail.Wou.Edu Western Oregon University Digital Commons@WOU Student Theses, Papers and Projects (History) Department of History 2015 Zoot Suit Riots and the Role of the Zoot Suit in Chicano Culture Rebecca Grizzle Western Oregon Universiity, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wou.edu/his Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Grizzle, Rebecca, "Zoot Suit Riots and the Role of the Zoot Suit in Chicano Culture" (2015). Student Theses, Papers and Projects (History). 42. https://digitalcommons.wou.edu/his/42 This Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of History at Digital Commons@WOU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Student Theses, Papers and Projects (History) by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@WOU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Zoot Suit Riots and the Role of the Zoot Suit in Chicano Culture By Rebecca Grizzle Senior Seminar: HST 499 Professor John L. Rector Western Oregon University May 28, 2015 Readers Professor John L. Rector Professor Patricia Goldsworthy-Bishop Copyright © Rebecca Grizzle, 2015 Grizzle 1 The Zoot Suit Riots Racial tensions in Los Angeles came to a head when a gang of sailors accosted a group of Mexican-Americans wearing “zoot suits” in June of 1943. This led to the arrest of people wearing the suits. This initial incident was followed by days of violence in which servicemen roamed the Los Angeles area and physically assaulted any Mexican Americans they found in zoot suit apparel. The next two nights the attacks on civilians were even worse and though a few sailors were arrested and the rest were warned not to attack civilians, word of the rioting spread and more military personnel from other areas of the city and as far away as San Diego joined in as well. These events were preceded by increased racial tension between Mexican-Americans and whites, or Anglos. Tensions had been heightened even more right before the riots by convictions against several zoot suiters in a murder case known as the Sleepy Lagoon Case. Continued clashes between Mexican-Americans and military personnel in Los Angeles in the days and weeks to come. The violence ended only after a curfew was placed on the military personnel in Los Angeles. The suits supposedly defied the law. This suit represented more than a mere fashion statement and was a powerful cultural identifier for many Chicanos. The suit was a way for young people to define themselves in an age where they were given little social or political voice. It became an image of power for them as well as a way to express that they were important , despite the dominant society telling them otherwise. Though it was originally more closely identified with jazz and swing culture, as the fashion became more widespread, it also became associated with delinquents and gangsters. The complicated meaning behind the suits, highlighted by the government ban on excessive use of material in making civilian clothing during World War II and racial tensions in the Los Angeles area meant that these riots were a product of a multitude of forces. This paper Grizzle 2 will explore the cultural significance of the zoot suit as well as different factors that contributed to the Zoot Suit Riots. The paper begins with a discussion of how other historians have interpreted the events, and then examines some of the same primary material that they used in their analysis. It continues with a discussion of the events that led up to the riots and influenced the attitudes of white Angelenos followed by a discussion about the importance of the zoot suit in Chicano/Latino culture. The paper then takes a close look at the riots and demonstrates that no one factor was responsible for the outbreak of violence, but that it was a combination of conditions which allowed the riots to break out. In the aftermath of the riots, news writers focused mainly on how racial tension in Los Angeles had contributed to the riots. Even before the direct investigations into the riots had been completed, they were being written about by outside commentators. As more journalists began to address this subject, a frustrating problem emerged: almost every single story used the same small selection of articles, memoranda, and investigative reports to build their narrative of the events. As historians addressed this event in the 1970’s, this trend continued. The thesis of Solomon J. Jones is an excellent example of this type of work. Jones’s thesis, “The Government Riots of Los Angeles 1943”, looks at the riots through the popular lens of the seventies: race. His work is well sourced and researched, and it utilizes many of the primary sources that were commonly cited in this era. “The Government Riots of Los Angeles 1943” concentrates on the ostracization felt by Mexican-American youths and concludes that this led to the adaptation of the zoot culture in order to create a sense of group feeling among the second generation Mexican-Americans. The reaction of the general public was then to lump all zoot suiters into the category of criminal delinquent, fueled by their media representation as such. Another author even went as far as mentioning that the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, made comments Grizzle 3 suggesting that the events of the riots “have roots in things which happened long before.” 1 Jones also, somewhat surprisingly, did not place the blame on the servicemen who were involved in the riots, instead focusing the blame on media, high ranking military personnel, city government, and police. 2 He believed that they reacted too quickly to blame the Mexican-American population without looking closely at surrounding circumstances and underlying racial tension. The conclusions that Jones draws are sound, but his work tends to gloss over the Sleepy Lagoon murder and its connection to the riots. Considering that the murder trial took place only six months before the riots and was accompanied by large amounts of negative press about both zoot suiters and Mexican-Americans in general, it cannot be ignored as a contributing factor. He also downplays reports of acts of Mexican-Americans’ violence towards servicemen, largely over arguments regarding the affections of young women. 3 Jones’s work has undercurrents of leftist thinking in placing the blame for the riots on racial divides, a type of class struggle. Although his research is a step in the right direction, it ignored some of the other factors at play in the lead-up to the riots. Beyond the racial and classist divides that Jones used to define the riots, another historian chose to examine them from a different perspective. Mauricio Mazón ’s 1984 book, The Zoot-Suit Riots: The Psychology of Symbolic Annihilation, is especially interesting because it lays out the different gen eralizations and reductive statements that past historians have made about the zoot suit riots as well as the author’s own refutation or elaboration of those views. Mazón’s main focus is the psychological motivation behind the riots, and he spends his introduction explaining how previous historians tended to reduce the spark of the riots to a simple racial disagreement 1 Kevin Hillstrom, The Zoot Suit Riots (Detroit, MI: Omnigraphics, 2013) 177. 2 Solomon J. Jones’s thesis The Government Riots of Los Angeles, June 1943 (San Francisco: R and E Research Associates, 1973) 8. 3 Hillstrom, 85-6. Grizzle 4 that gained momentum. While it is fairly accepted that the riots were in fact racially motivated and that hatred towards Mexican-Americans was the main catalyst, Mazón takes the argument deeper and examines the psychology behind that racism. He explores the different ways in which the Mexican-American population felt ostracized and uses the Sleepy Lagoon trials to highlight changing perceptions of zoot suited youths. 4 Instead of issuing a blanket statement of “the riots were racist” and then going on to describe the events and the racial motivations of the riots, Mazón believes that to really understand this moment in history we must look ba ck and see why this racism developed in the first place. Mazón’s unique approach to this subject included another element that had been previously alluded to, but never really explored. He looked in to the psychology of servicemen and the transformations that take place as they make the transition from civilian world to the military. He assesses the need for young GIs to relax in their down time as well as to rebel against the strict rules of military life. 5 This view is especially interesting in a contemp orary sense because historians are just now beginning to explore in depth the psychological effects of military service. Mazón’s book examines the group mentality of servicemen and the indoctrination of brotherhood that imbues military service. He suggest s that it offers an explanation of how and why so many service members could have gotten involved in the violence. Mazón’s inclusion of psychology was a new and innovative way of examining the riots. The riots did not only interest scholars such as Jones and Mazón , they also caught the attention of artists. A popular song called “Zoot Suit Riot” by a swing band called the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies features lyrics such as “Who’s that whisperin’ in the trees/ it’s two sailors and 4 Mauricio Mazón , The Zoot-Suit Riots: The Psychology of Symbolic Annihilation (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984) 28. 5 Ibid, 57-8. Grizzle 5 they’re on leave/ pipes and chains and swingin’ hands/ who’s your daddy, yes I am.” 6 The 1997 song clearly references the riots and goes on to suggest that “Now you sailors know/ where your women come for love.” 7 While the song is undoubtedly catchy, it misrepresents the zoot suiters as happy to fight and handily overcoming the sailors, when in fact the opposite was true of the actual riots.
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