#zoot suit riots
Ethnicity and cinema: American Me?
The film opens depicting events from the Zoot Suit Riots, where thousands of white American sailors and servicemen based in California attacked Latinos and others who took part in so-called “pachuco” culture, mostly targeting those who wore “zoot suits” (seen as symbols of Latino pride and considered by the rioters to be unpatriotic and extravagant in a time of war). This grew into heightened tension between European-Americans and Mexican-Americans in Southern California, setting the stage for the later gang conflicts depicted in the film.
Eduardo Orozco
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I’ve been jotting down some really interesting notes about United States Press coverage, and government propagandizing, from the period of the Mexican American War. Its amazing how much these narratives have in common with the fantasies of former colonizing Europeans, and then even through the 20th century, (the Zoot Suit Riot era headlines could stand in for those durring the actuall War in the 1840s).
Specifically a lot of these public stories will deal with the notion of liberating exotic women from their naturally brutish and impotent men. Even more recently, Kevin Starr in his book California, chalks the riots up to “teenage jealousies” – an offensive reduction, especially given the collusion of adults in the mainstream press, the LAPD, and civilian vigilante mobs.
