Zoot Suit Riots

The Zoot Suit Riots (v. Engl. Riot riot, riot, suit suit) were a series of riots in Los Angeles , USA in 1943.

They were inflamed during the Second World War between soldiers stationed in the city and Mexican-American youth gangs, led by so-called pachucos , who were known for the zoot suits they wore.

history

On June 3, 1943, a group of soldiers complained that they had been attacked by a Pachuco gang while on shore leave. In response, soldiers rallied and headed downtown and East LA , the center of the Mexican population. Upon their arrival, they attacked all the men in zoot suits they met on their way through these neighborhoods and tore the suits off many of them and then burned them in the street. Police arrested the beaten Mexican-American Americans on several counts for causing disturbance.

Several hundred pachucos and nine soldiers were arrested as a result of the unrest that took place over the following days. Of the nine soldiers arrested, eight were released without penalty - one of whom had to pay a small fine. The Mexican Americans fared worse, some died in detention because their injuries were not treated, and others were convicted of crimes that could not be clearly established.

consequences

Finally, on June 7, the government intervened and stated that Los Angeles would be closed to all military forces with immediate effect.

In response to the riots, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote her weekly column on the problems faced by the Mexican-American community because of racism in the United States .

Cultural processing

There was a riot-based play that was filmed in 1981. In addition, Thomas Sanchez wrote a detective novel called The Zoot Suit Murders , which used the arguments as a background story. A swing album Zoot Suit Riot with the same title was released in 1997 by the American band Cherry Poppin 'Daddies .

In the crime novel " The Black Dahlia " by James Ellroy , one of the key encounters between the protagonists Police Officer Dwight W. "Bucky" Bleichert and his later partner Sergeant Leland C. "Lee" Blanchard takes place during a police operation during the Zoot Suit Riots.

literature

• Eduardo Obregón Pagán. Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon: Zoot Suits, Race, and Riot in Wartime LA Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 2004.
• Mazon, Maurizio. The Zoot-Suit Riots: The Psychology of Symbolic Annihilation. University of Texas Press, Austin, TX. 2002 ISBN 0-292-79803-2