Video: 'How Anti-Mexican Racism in L.A. Caused the Zoot Suit Riots | History'
(Thursday, June 3, 1943, evening PWT; during the Zoot Suit Riots and World War II) — The Zoot Suit Riots, a series of riots that took place from June 3–8, 1943, in Los Angeles, California, United States, involving American servicemen stationed in Southern California and young Latino and Mexican American city residents, began tonight.
It was one of the dozen wartime industrial cities that suffered race-related riots in the summer of 1943, along with Mobile, Alabama; Beaumont, Texas; Detroit, Michigan; and New York City.
It began tonight when eleven sailors got off a bus and started walking along Main Street in downtown Los Angeles. Encountering a group of young Mexican Americans in zoot suits, they got into an argument.
The sailors later told the LAPD that they were jumped and beaten by this gang, while the zoot suiters claimed the altercation was started by the sailors.
The LAPD responded to the incident, including many off-duty officers who were identified as the Vengeance Squad. The officers went to the scene “seeking to clean up Main Street from what they viewed as the loathsome influence of pachuco gangs.”
Video: 'ZOOT SUIT RIOTS (HISTORY)'
American servicemen and white Angelenos attacked and stripped children, teenagers, and youths who wore zoot suits, ostensibly because they considered the outfits, which were made from large amounts of fabric, to be unpatriotic during World War II. Rationing of fabrics and certain foods was required at the time for the war effort.
While most of the violence was directed toward Mexican American youth, African American and Filipino American youths who were wearing zoot suits were also attacked.
The Zoot Suit Riots were related to fears and hostilities aroused by the coverage of the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial, following the killing of a young Latino man in what was then an unincorporated commercial area near Los Angeles.
The riot appeared to trigger similar attacks that year against Latinos in Chicago, San Diego, Oakland, Evansville, Philadelphia, and New York City.
The defiance of zoot suiters became inspirational for Chicanos during the Chicano Movement.
