Revisiting the ‘zoot suit riots’ seems particularly relevant this year.
The violence erupted in June 1943 in Oakland, San Jose, San Diego, and other places. But the worst was in LA. Hundreds of servicemen went on a rampage in East LA savagely attacking Mexican-Americans (also blacks and Filipinos) attired in the zoot suit style.
Soldiers and sailers went so far as to drag ‘zoot suiters’ out of movie theaters and off of streetcars to beat them and strip them of their clothing. AP photographer Harold P. Matosian captured the scene above.
Rampaging servicemen appeared “to be tacitly supported by many city and local officials,“ reported the chairman of the Coordinating Council of the Young People of Latin America in an urgent telegram to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Newspapers, which had been fanning the flames of anti-Mexican resentment, reacted exactly how you would expect. Here’s our 'paper of record’ on June 7, 1943:
As Malcolm X warned: “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”
I’ll give the last word to El Pachuco from Zoot Suit, the landmark 1978 play by Luis Valdez:
The Press distorted the very meaning of the word 'zoot suit.’
All it is for you guys is another way to say Mexican.
