Essay On The Zoot Suit Riots

The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of racial attacks in 1943 throughout in L.A, California, throughout a amount once several immigrants arrived for the defense effort and new appointed, servicemen flooded Los Angeles. U.S sailors and marines attacked Mexican groups, recognizable by the zoot suits they favored and would always where, as being disloyal. Yank military personnel and Mexicans were the most parties within the riots; servicemen attacked some African yank and Filipino yank youths also, who conjointly took up the zoot suits. The suit Riots were associated with fears and hostilities aroused by the coverage of the blue lake murder trial, following the killing of a young Latino man in a varrio close to L.A. The riots gave the impression to trigger similar attacks that year against Latinos in
Unwritten rules demanded that people of color remain unseen and unheard in public spaces, but the zoot suit, with broad shoulders, narrow waist, and ballooned pants, was loud and bold. Zoot suited young men and women as well, held themselves upright and walked with a confident swagger that seemed to flow from the very fashion itself. As the sleepy lagoon murder trial of 1942, involving mostly Mexican American young men, proved, this particular demographic, zoot suited or not, came to be singled out and associated with criminality and gangsterism by Los Angeles authorities. In a time of war, when social boundaries were rapidly changing, questions of allegiance and conformity became invested with particular significance. Many Angelenos objected to the zoot suiters including, incidentally, older generations of Mexican Americans, whose communities were traditional, conservative, and self contained. Critics saw Mexican American youths as cultural rebels and delinquents who openly defied cherished American values and customs.