Zoot Suit Riots

In 1943, zoot-suited young Mexican Americans and uniformed young American G.I.s clashed violently on the streets of Los Angeles in an episode known as the Zoot Suit riots. At that time, Los Angeles had one of the largest Mexican populations in the United States. First-generation Mexican immigrants worked for low pay in poor areas. Their offspring, the young and restless zoot-suited pachucos, frequented downtown pool halls, movies, dance halls, and other entertainment facilities. The hot style for young minority males in 1943 was the zoot suit and an extreme ducktail hairstyle. Zoot style and pachuco attitude were “look-at-me” defiant.

War-stressed whites perceived the pachucos as threats similar to the Japanese and Japanese [Page 2224]Americans just recently moved to detention centers. The chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) equated Mexicans with Indians and Asians and classed them as bloodthirsty Aztecs. The 1942 Sleepy Lagoon trial had intensified an already strong anti-Hispanic mood in the community, and the local media were touting a Mexican crime wave caused by zoot-suited pachucos and gangsters, equated in the press reports.

Pachucos were not the only young men in downtown Los Angeles. The area's bases were full of young men confronting imminent transfer to the war zone. Young G.I.s found Mexican American culture in general, and pachuco style in particular, to be alien, perhaps offensive or threatening. Initially the G.I.s treated the pachucos mockingly, but soon they began to resent that the pachucos were civilians while they were preparing to ship overseas. It did not matter that Mexican Americans were overrepresented in the military or that the ones on the streets were underage; the ones the soldiers saw were not in uniform at all but rather were strutting their stuff.

The riots began on May 31. Twelve sailors and soldiers walking down Main Street in East Los Angeles crossed the street to talk to a group of women. Seaman Joe Dacy Coleman remained behind. A group of pachucos approached, exchanged words, and attacked Dacy. Meanwhile, another group of pachucos assaulted the servicemen across the street. Surprised and determined to rid the streets of criminal gangs, the sailors and soldiers mobilized.

Three days later, 50 sailors headed from the Chavez Ravine naval reserve armory in search of Mexican Americans downtown. On June 4, 1943, about 200 sailors, bored and bigoted and responding to a claim that the night before, pachucos had robbed and beaten several sailors, hired cabs and headed for East Los Angeles with the aim of beating and stripping any young man they saw. Thousands of those stationed awaiting shipment overseas headed to the bars, parks, theaters, and restaurants, dragging Hispanics out and beating them. Servicemen stripped the zoot suits and cut the ducktails. Los Angeles police officers stood by, watching. Through June 5, the action stayed downtown, but on June 6 it moved to the East Los Angeles barrio, and June 7 was the most severe day of the riots.

Authorities made a few token arrests but did not detain the sailors. Perceiving the token effort as a green light, soldiers and sailors marched through the barrio, entering bars and movie theaters and assaulting and embarrassing all young Latinos, pachuco or not. The G.I.s also assaulted young Filipinos and blacks in the area. Police accompanied the G.I. caravans. The shore patrol and military police abdicated their responsibility for controlling the soldiers and sailors.

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