Zoot-Suit Riots Exemplify Ethnic Tensions in L.A., June 3, 1943-June 8, 1943
(From Student Resource Center Gold, a Gale online database that includes ReadSpeaker text-to-speech techonlogy)
The events that culminated in the zoot-suit riots of 1943 cannot be traced to only one or two sources. A close examination of the social and political climate of Los Angeles in the early 1940's reveals that a combination of factors was responsible for the riots. All these factors, however, reflect the city's attitude toward minorities in general and, more specifically, the Mexican-American population of Los Angeles.
Fully expecting a sea attack from Japan after Pearl Harbor, military and civilian authorities in Los Angeles took a hard look at the activities of all minorities in the city. First, all Japanese were moved inland, away from the shoreline. This fear of subversive activities among the Japanese was extended to all minorities by a series of books that were widely read and discussed by people in Los Angeles in 1943. The paranoia generated by books such as Martin Dies's The Trojan Horse in America (1940) and Harold Lavine's Fifth Column in America (1940) led to the creation by the California State legislature of a joint senate-assembly committee to investigate communist, fascist, Nazi, and other foreign-dominated groups. The Mexican-American community became one of the objects of this growing fear of foreigners in 1942, when the Joint Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities in California launched an investigation of the Sinarquistas, an anti-Communist society that had tried to influence politics in Mexico and was charged with perpetrating subversive activities in the barrios of Los Angeles. The hearings of this committee, which continued from 1940 until 1945, contributed to the city's xenophobic response to the Mexican-American community during the entire decade.
Another factor that cast Mexican Americans in a suspicious light was the American public's obsession with juvenile delinquency. Between 1942 and 1943, the Los Angeles press presented a highly distorted view of delinquency, focusing primarily on the activities of Mexican gangs. Many of these gangs adopted the pachuco lifestyle, which was essentially a generational rebellion against both Mexican and American cultures. Not only did these gangs adhere to traditionally violent methods of settling disputes, but they also tried to underscore their identity by adopting the then-modern "zoot suit" form of dress. This bizarre fashion acquired insidious overtones as a result of a series of "Li'l Abner" comic strips entitled "Zoot-Suit Yokum" that appeared in newspapers nationwide between April 11, 1943, and May 23, 1943. In these strips, Al Capp attached conspiratorial machinations to the wearers of zoot suits, thereby labeling them as a potential threat to the American way of life. Essentially, then, the zoot suiters in Los Angeles came to be thought of in Los Angeles as the antithesis of everything that "real" Americans, like the servicemen, police, and politicians in the area, stood for.
The gang rivalry that occasionally erupted culminated in an incident that, with the help of the press, accentuated the criminality of Mexican-American youth. According to police accounts, a clash between the Belvedere gang and the Palo Verde gang in East Los Angeles on August 1, 1942, resulted in the slaying of a young Mexican-American named Jose Diaz, whose body was found beside a swimming hole called the Sleepy Lagoon. On January 13, 1943, seventeen reputed gang members were convicted of manslaughter and assault, even though the fact of a murder had never been established and a murder weapon had never been produced. All these convictions were overturned in 1944 because of the efforts of a fact-finding committee formed by magazine editor Carey McWilliams. Nevertheless, the publicity generated by the trial convinced many members of the Anglo community that the "Mexican problem" was a genuine menace to their welfare.
As a result of the Sleepy Lagoon case, Mexican-American youth became the focus of a widespread police investigation. During hearings that were begun in 1942 by the Tenney Committee, members of the police and sheriff's departments expounded the police theory that crime was a matter of race. In 1943, the Los Angeles County Grand Jury recommended that all delinquent and "pre-delinquent" Mexican-American youth be placed in special facilities. The 1943 grand jury also proposed denying juvenile court jurisdiction for participants in zoot suit gang offenses. By encouraging the police to redouble their efforts to control the Mexican-American gangs, this court action increased the resentment of the Mexican-American community. By this time, many Mexican Americans were convinced that the Los Angeles Police Department and the Anglo community in general had embarked on a systematic campaign to destroy their way of life.
The hostility between the Anglos and the Mexicans that had been enflamed by the press, city officials, and the police erupted into violence. On June 3, 1943, several off-duty police officers entered the Mexican district to look for zoot suiters who had attacked a group of sailors there. Because the police failed to apprehend the culprits, two hundred sailors cruised the Mexican district in a fleet of taxicabs on the following night, stopping periodically to beat lone zoot suiters. The sailors were followed by the police, who arrested the youths that had been singled out by the sailors. These outbreaks of violence continued from June 5 to June 8. On June 8, the Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance making the wearing of zoot suits a misdemeanor. The riots ended after downtown Los Angeles was placed off-limits to military personnel on June 9.
An investigation by the Tenney Committee was begun immediately following the riots. The committee charged that the riots had been started by Communists who had sought to indoctrinate the zoot-suit-wearing pachucos. The committee's findings were refuted by Carey McWilliams. Speaking before the Committee on Un-American Activities in California, McWilliams placed the blame on the sailors who had been dating the girlfriends of the zoot suiters. He also contended that the riots were caused by racial prejudice, a point that was echoed by the African-American press.
Impact of Event
Ironically, the zoot-suit riots were, to a great extent, a blessing in disguise for the minority communities of Los Angeles. To prevent a recurrence of the June confrontation, the Navy command in Los Angeles and Southern California and Mayor Fletcher Bowron of Los Angeles closely examined the conditions plaguing the city's minorities. Since the Navy had trouble determining the exact cause of the zoot-suit riots, it concentrated on the problems facing the African-American community. In a report dated July 29, 1943, both the Navy and various city officials agreed that discrimination against blacks was indeed being practiced in the areas of transportation, recreation, and housing. Even though the purpose of this study was to prevent a riot among black sailors, it set the stage for the activities of other civic committees by stating that discrimination was a serious problem in Los Angeles.
It was not until 1944 that a serious attempt was made to probe the cause of the zoot-suit riots. An investigative committee chaired by Carey McWilliams attempted to bring about a "return to sanity in Los Angeles." As a result of the meeting, Governor Earl Warren formed a citizens' committee to investigate the origin of the riots. Warren's committee concluded that not all Mexicans were zoot suiters and that the origin of the riots stemmed from the outbreak of juvenile delinquency in Los Angeles. The report and recommendations of the citizens' committee eventually led to the formation of the quarter-million-dollar Youth Project, which, in conjunction with the California Youth Authority, became one of the most effective means of handling juvenile delinquency in the city's history.
The Mexican-American community in Los Angeles benefited more directly from the formation of a legion of community organizations. By 1947, the Welfare Planning Council had affiliated these organizations to produce the Community Relations Conferencof Southern California. Still active more than forty years later, this conference assumed a pivotal role in ending racial segregation in public housing projects and in Los Angeles' fire department. The conference also helped the police department establish a human relations course.
Of deeper significance than the creation of committees was the rehabilitation of the image of individual young people of Mexican descent. Many Anglo-Americans realized as they never had before that Americans of Hispanic descent had to be brought into the mainstream of American life. In addition, many older Mexican Americans who had previously rejected the pachucos saw that a reconciliation between the generations was needed to prevent another outbreak of violence. Conversely, many younger Mexican Americans realized that they had to make an aggressive effort to earn the approval of their elders by behaving in a manner that was socially acceptable.