thesis statement for zoot suit

Luis Valdez

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Racism, Nationalism, and Scapegoating

In Luis Valdez’s Zoot Suit , a play about discrimination against Los Angeles’s Chicano population in the 1940s, Henry Reyna and his fellow members of the 38th Street Gang face institutionalized racism and prejudice. Valdez makes it clear that Henry and his friends are at the mercy of a biased court system, as the men are held accountable for a murder they didn’t commit. As the gang go through the legal process, the judge presiding…

Self-Presentation and Cultural Identity

Luis Valdez’s Zoot Suit pays close attention to how people present themselves and the ways in which this presentation influences cultural identification. The play itself is named after a 1940s style of clothing known as the zoot suit , which many Chicanos saw as representative of their place in American society. From the very beginning of the play, El Pachuco —the production’s active, meta-narrative narrator—calls attention to the importance of self-presentation, urging audience members to…

Public Perception and the Press

Although Luis Valdez’s Zoot Suit is largely about how people present themselves, it’s also about what happens when they’re unable to control their own public image. Valdez spotlights the press’s unfair treatment of Henry Reyna, outlining what it looks like when the news media manipulates a narrative at the expense of people who can’t defend themselves because they don’t have a substantial public platform. To further accentuate this power imbalance, Valdez goes out of his…

Advocates vs. Saviors

In Zoot Suit , Luis Valdez studies the nuances of civil rights advocacy. Considering what it means for a white person to act as an ally to people of color, Valdez shows audience members that there are certain complexities inherent to relationships in which white people use their privilege to support minorities. This dynamic arises when George —a white man—offers to represent Henry and the rest of the 38th Street Gang in court, since they…

by Luis Valdez

Zoot suit themes.

A major theme in the play revolves around the wrongful imprisonment of the members of the 38th Street Gang, who are persecuted primarily because of their race. The police force has a bigoted attitude towards the Hispanic gang members and characters regularly make reference to the second-class citizenship of the Hispanic characters.

In addition to the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial, the play also looks at the Zoot Suit Riots, which took place during the same time, in which servicemen stationed in Southern California committed racially motivated violent acts against local Hispanic residents.

Prejudice and the Law

As the murder trial winds to a close, the DA flatly states that in his opinion the actual details of what happened, which remain ambiguous at best, are ultimately irrelevant in the face of the real threat that the murder exposed: the tough, young, flashy Mexican immigrants “in our midst.” These stereotypes about Pachuco culture and how it relates to the larger Mexican immigrant culture expands to become the premise upon which the police decide the killer was wearing a zoot suit. Even though there is a lack of strong evidence, the courts and the law professionals involved in the case believe that, for symbolic purposes, the arrest of the 38th Street Gang members is completely necessary.

Rewriting the Narrative

The play looks at actual historical events in Mexican-American history and tries to present them in a way that makes room for the perspectives of the Hispanic people involved. The figure of El Pachuco acts as a kind of narrator in the play. As a manifestation of the Pachuco archetype, a kind of allegory for Chicano excellence—at once impressive, all-knowing, tricky, and disruptive—he makes sure that the Chicano perspective is getting adequately represented in the narrative.

El Pachuco contains many different facets and guides Henry Reyna along his journey. His highly theatrical persona onstage has the effect of both clarifying as well as confusing the narrative. Nowhere is this more evident than the end of the play when three different possible endings are presented to the audience. Henry's fate remains ambiguous, as the audience must ponder whether he met a happy and glorious or a tragic one.

Passion & Romance

Henry Reyna, as the leader of a gang, is quite the ladies' man, but he holds a special place in his heart for his girlfriend, Della . Della is willing to rebel against the wishes of her father to be with Henry, and testifies on Henry's behalf in court.

Additionally, Henry falls unexpectedly in love with Alice Bloomfield , the white activist who works on his behalf while he is in jail. They have a letter correspondence and even kiss passionately during visiting hours at one point in the play. While Henry's romantic life is not shown that much in the course of the play, he is portrayed as a passionate and seductive figure.

White Savior

Two characters who are instrumental in the case for the 38th Street Gang are George Shearer and Alice Bloomfield, two white people who have chosen to help the members of the gang. They are, in some respects, typical examples of "white savior" figures, an archetype of a white person who has chosen to help a non-white person (sometimes with the implication that they are serving themselves). In the course of the play, the Chicano characters are, to varying degrees, skeptical of George and Alice. In the beginning, the boys refuse George's legal help until he speaks Spanish to them and tells them not to assume anything about him without first giving him a chance to help. In a confrontation with Alice, Henry accuses her of being disingenuous in her desire to help. It is not until she breaks down and admits that she gets exhausted by her work as an advocate that Henry trusts her. The play represents several examples of the "white savior" archetype, and these figures are important parts of the 38th Street Gang's victory, but they are also met with some resistance from the people they are trying to help.

The Press and Media Scrutiny

Another major theme in the play is how the media scrutinizes and puts a spin on events. The whole stage is filled with newspapers and stacks of newspapers that represent other props onstage, and the 38th Street Gang must contend with perceptions about them that have a prejudicial rhetorical bent. Indeed, many times, the press is represented by one character or a chorus of voices that shout out information about the case that clearly has a strong bias. Alice Bloomfield, as a member of a more left-leaning publication, seeks to combat these misrepresentations and advocate for the 38th Street boys with her own journalistic powers. Thus, the play shows that the press influences public opinion, and that many people do not realize how skewed or biased it can be.

Masculinity

The archetype of the "Pachuco," in his zoot suit and his flamboyant adornments, is an image of confident and smooth masculinity. The Chicano men in the play pride themselves on their masculinity, their prowess with women, and their ability to lead with a certain amount of machismo. Thus, when the figure of El Pachuco is stripped and humiliated in the course of the "Zoot Suit riots," left naked on the stage, it is particularly striking—the image of a man who is stripped of his masculine embellishments.

Zoot Suit Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Zoot Suit is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

How did Rudy end Henry and the Pachuccos life? And what is happening at the time this happend?

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The theme of racial discrimination is shown as members of the 38th Street Gang contend with the ways that they are mistreated by officers of the law. They are often stuck in jail for small crimes, and are treated more poorly than their white peers. The ev

A major theme in the play revolves around the wrongful imprisonment of the members of the 38th Street Gang, who are persecuted primarily because of their race. The police force has a bigoted attitude towards the Hispanic gang members and...

Is pachuco helpful or hurtful to Henry in his time of isolation? Why?

Pachuco refers to a subculture of Chicanos and Mexican-Americans. Are you referring to the culture?

Study Guide for Zoot Suit

Zoot Suit study guide contains a biography of Luis Valdez, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis of the play.

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Prelude to the riots

Zoot Suit Riots

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Zoot Suit Riots , a series of conflicts that occurred in June 1943 in Los Angeles between U.S. servicemen and Mexican American youths, the latter of whom wore outfits called zoot suits. The zoot suit consisted of a broad-shouldered drape jacket, balloon-leg trousers , and, sometimes, a flamboyant hat . Mexican and Mexican American youths who wore these outfits were called zoot-suiters. These individuals referred to themselves as pachucos , a name linked to the Mexican American generation’s rebellion against both the Mexican and American cultures .

Pressures related to U.S. involvement in World War II contributed to the racial tensions that preceded the riots . Workers were needed in the agricultural and service sectors of the United States to fill the jobs vacated by those who were serving in the military. An agreement was reached with Mexico whereby temporary workers from Mexico were brought into the United States. This influx of Mexican workers was not particularly welcomed by white Americans.

As part of the war effort, by March 1942 the United States had begun rationing various resources. Restrictions on wool had a direct effect on the manufacture of wool suits and other clothing. There were regulations prohibiting the manufacturing of zoot suits, but a network of bootleg tailors continued to manufacture them. This exacerbated racial tensions, as Mexican American youths wearing the zoot suits were seen as un-American because they were deliberately ignoring the rationing regulations.

The Zoot Suit Riots are commonly associated with the Sleepy Lagoon murder, which occurred in August 1942. The Sleepy Lagoon, as it was nicknamed, was one of the larger reservoirs outside the city of Los Angeles. On the night of August 1, 1942, zoot-suiters were involved in a fight at a party near the Sleepy Lagoon. The next morning one of the partygoers, José Díaz, was dead. There was public outcry against the zoot-suiters, fueled by local tabloids. Citing concerns about juvenile delinquency , California Gov. Culbert Olson used Díaz’s death as the impetus for a roundup by the Los Angeles Police Department of more than 600 young men and women, most of whom were Mexican American. Several of the zoot-suiters who were arrested were tried and, in January 1943, convicted of murder . However, many people denounced the circus atmosphere of the trial and attacked the verdict as a miscarriage of justice . The convictions of the Mexican American youths were later reversed on appeal in October 1944.

During the period from 1942 through 1943, the news media continued to portray the zoot-suiters as dangerous gang members who were capable of murder. On the basis of the news reports, more and more people began to believe that the Mexican American youths, particularly the zoot-suiters, were predisposed to committing crime . It was in this racially charged atmosphere that the conflict between predominantly white servicemen stationed in southern California and Mexican American youths in the area began. Incidents initially took the form of minor altercations but later escalated. Within months of the Sleepy Lagoon convictions, Los Angeles erupted in what are commonly referred to as the Zoot Suit Riots.

The riots began on June 3, 1943, after a group of sailors stated that they had been attacked by a group of Mexican American zoot-suiters. As a result, on June 4 a number of uniformed sailors chartered cabs and proceeded to the Mexican American community , seeking out the zoot-suiters. What occurred that evening and in the following days was a series of conflicts primarily between servicemen and zoot-suiters. Many zoot-suiters were beaten by servicemen and stripped of their zoot suits on the spot. The servicemen sometimes urinated on the zoot suits or burned them in the streets. One local paper printed an article describing how to “de-zoot” a zoot-suiter, including directions that the zoot suits should be burned. The servicemen were also portrayed in local news publications as heroes fighting against what was referred to as a Mexican crime wave. The worst of the rioting occurred on the night of June 7, when thousands of servicemen and citizens prowled the streets of downtown Los Angeles, attacking zoot-suiters as well as members of minority groups who were not wearing zoot suits.

In response to these confrontations , police arrested hundreds of Mexican American youths, many of whom had already been attacked by servicemen. There were also reports of Mexican American youths requesting to be arrested and locked up in order to protect themselves from the servicemen in the streets. In contrast, very few sailors and soldiers were arrested during the riots.

Shortly after midnight on June 8, military officials declared Los Angeles off-limits to all military personnel. Deciding that the local police were completely unable or unwilling to handle the situation, officials ordered military police to patrol parts of the city and arrest disorderly military personnel; this, coupled with the ban, served to greatly deter the servicemen’s riotous actions. The next day the Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution that banned the wearing of zoot suits on Los Angeles streets. The number of attacks dwindled, and the rioting had largely ended by June 10. In the following weeks, however, similar disturbances occurred in other states.

Remarkably, no one was killed during the riots, although many people were injured. The fact that considerably more Mexican Americans than servicemen were arrested—upward of 600 of the former, according to some estimates—fueled criticism of the Los Angeles Police Department’s response to the riots from some quarters.

As the riots died down, California Gov. Earl Warren ordered the creation of a citizens’ committee to investigate and determine the cause of the Zoot Suit Riots. The committee’s report indicated that there were several factors involved but that racism was the central cause of the riots and that it was exacerbated by the response of the Los Angeles Police Department as well as by biased and inflammatory media coverage. Los Angeles Mayor Fletcher Bowron , concerned about the riots’ negative impact on the city’s image, issued his own conclusion, stating that racial prejudice was not a factor and that the riots were caused by juvenile delinquents.

The Los Angeles Zoot-Suit Riots and Its Effects Essay

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Due to favorable immigration policies, the US is home to all ethnic groups in the world. For that reason, the US is home to Whites, Asians, Hispanics, and Africans.

Nonetheless, these groups have endured racism and ethnic stratification throughout history. In this regard, certain races are perceived to be superior or inferior to others.

Consequently, racism has been the greatest obstacle to the assimilation of certain ethnic groups in the US. The Zoot-Suit riots were, hence, a manifestation of a greater problem in the US.

According to Castillo, the Zoot-Suit riots exposed the racial hatred towards Latin Americans and other ethnic minorities.

Its publicity, thus, exposed the plight of ethnic minorities in California and the entire country. This essay explains the influence of the Los Angeles Zoot-Suit Riots on ethnicity, nationalism, and assimilation in the US.

The Zoot-Suit riots took place in June 1943. For two weeks, military personnel based at the Chavez Ravine Naval Reserve Training School in Los Angeles embarked on a string of attacks on young Mexicans wearing the zoot-suit (Watson).

This event was the largest civil disturbance involving Mexican-Americans in the US. Moreover, Chicanos were the main victims in this confrontation. Chicano, a term associated with politics and activism, refers to later generations of Mexican immigrants (Castillo).

Within the first ten days of the riot, White people joined the military and the police in pursuing the zoot-suiters (Watson).

Therefore, by pursuing Mexican zoot-suiters, the police and the military were fueling ethnic hatred towards them (Castillo). Subsequently, the zoot-suiters embarked on a series of retaliatory attacks — for instance, the angry youths ran-down policeman and stoned sailors (Watson).

The Zoot-Suit riots generated varied reaction and conclusions on the predicaments of ethnic minorities in California. For instance, the Latin American press used this incident as a confirmation of prejudices leveled against the Latinos in the US.

Therefore, the Zoot-Suit riots were seen as a product of hate directed towards Mexican-Americans. Also, many historians believe that the reactions from Mexican-Americans were mainly due to racial stereotypes and other forms of discrimination.

Furthermore, this disturbance reminded the Chicanos that they were descendants of Mexican immigrants. Accordingly, their nationalism was dented as they felt like second-class citizens in their country of birth.

Further analyses of the Zoot-Suit riots indicate that these happenings were part of a wider scheme to victimize California’s ethnic minorities (Watson). Consequently, organizations representing ethnic minorities united in a bid to expose the events behind this riot (Watson).

Racists believe that some ethnic groups are naturally inferior to others. Consequently, racism has been used to justify the different forms of prejudices in the US. Ethnic minorities are more prone to prejudice and discrimination than the majority of ethnic groups in the US.

This discrimination takes place in all states within the US. For that reason, California does not represent an exception to the rule when it comes to race, nationalism and assimilation issues. Ratio discrimination is a vice that has been practiced throughout history in most parts of the US.

Ross and Agiesta affirm that racial attitudes in the US are yet to improve. Many people thought that racism would be minimized after the US elected its first African American president. However, according to Ross and Ageist, racism has increased moderately since 2008.

Additionally, most racist attitudes are directed towards African Americans and the Hispanics. For instance, African Americans encounter prejudice from 51% of Americans (Ross and Agiesta). Therefore, economic and social inequalities related to ethnicity persist in the United States.

Additionally, there are serious disparities among Whites, Asian Americans, Hispanics, and African Americans. Hispanics and African Americans are positioned lower in the United States’ socio-economic hierarchy.

For that reason, most members of these ethnic groups have little or no education, live in poor neighborhoods and are marginalized politically.

The Zoot-Suit riots show that ethnic intolerance is not something new in the US. For that reason, ethnic hierarchies have persisted for a long in the US. In the US, ethnic groups are organized hierarchically by their socio-economic status.

However, there is no evidence that a particular ethnic group is special in any way. Therefore, all ethnic groups are equal.

Similarly, how we perceive others influences our actions towards them. People perceive other cultures based on what they hear from different sources. This leads to stereotyping other people’s way of life. As a result, the correct description of these people and their cultures is distorted.

For that reason, racism can be eradicated by appreciating diversity in the US. Also, all citizens must acknowledge that the US is a racist country. Racism derails the United State’s progress and ignores diversity.

For instance, structural discrimination and lack of opportunities lead to disruptive behaviors among African Americans and Hispanics. Some of these behaviors include prostitution and crime. Mexican-Americans were a nuisance to the Los Angeles police in 1940s due to these disparities.

Although their socio-economic status is improving, African Americans and the Hispanics sit at the bottom of the ethnic hierarchy in the US. Therefore, current and historical disparities in California follow historical precedents in other states.

Works Cited

Castillo, Richard Griswold. “The Los Angeles “Zoot Suit Riots” Revisited: Mexican and Latin American Perspectives.” Mexican Studies/ Estudios Mexicanos 16.2 (2000): 367-39. JSTOR. Web.

Ross, Sonya and Jennifer Agiesta. “ Racism in America: Poll finds rise in prejudice since 2008 .” 2012. Portland Press Herald. Web.

Watson, John. “ Crossing the Color Lines in the City of Angels: The NAACP and the Zoot-Suit Riot of 1943. ” University of Sussex Journal of Contemporary History. 4 (2002). Web.

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IvyPanda. (2020, March 14). The Los Angeles Zoot-Suit Riots and Its Effects. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-los-angeles-zoot-suit-riots-and-its-effects/

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Zoot Suit Riot

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Zoot Suit Riot by Eduardo Obregón Pagán LAST REVIEWED: 19 March 2013 LAST MODIFIED: 19 March 2013 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199913701-0026

As night fell on Los Angeles on 3 June 1943, military men and civilians launched coordinated assaults on zoot-suited youth in the city’s streets in response to an escalating series of street-level challenges to white privilege. The riot effectively ended by Tuesday morning, 8 June 1943, when senior military officials, fearful of the negative publicity in the newspapers, declared Los Angeles out of bounds to all navy, marine, coast guard, and army personnel. In the end, an estimated ninety-four civilians and eighteen servicemen were treated for serious injuries from the riot. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) arrested all ninety-four of the civilians and only two of the servicemen. The Zoot Suit riot was unique among the riots that raged throughout the United States in 1943. Unlike the race riot in Detroit later that month, there were no murders, rapes, deaths, or serious damage to property reported in Los Angeles during the Zoot Suit riot. Instead, military men focused their rampage on finding youth wearing the so-called zoot suit (a fashion popularized by touring jazz bands), stripping them of their clothing, and then destroying the outfit.

California Legislature 1945 , published by the state legislature’s Committee on Un-American Activities in California, reflects the formal position of elected officials: that the violence was not racially motivated but was instead the result of pro-fascist operatives who provoked social discord among civilian youth. The novelist Chester Himes challenged such official denials in Himes 1943 . The Hollywood screenwriter Guy Endore fundamentally shifted the focus in Endore 1944 , by accusing the publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst of using his Los Angeles newspapers to promote “anti-Mexican hysteria.” This interpretation substantially influenced nearly all subsequent works. McWilliams 1949 expands on Endore’s thesis, claiming that Hearst sympathized with Adolf Hitler and that city police and military officials colluded with Hearst to foment racial hatred against Mexican Americans. Acuña 2011 modifies the Endore thesis in dropping the accusation that Hearst was behind the violence and carrying forward the thesis that all of Mexican American history (which includes the Zoot Suit riot) is a long sequence of anti-Mexican hysteria. Mazón 1984 adds psychoanalytic theory to explain why sailors experienced mass hysteria against Mexican Americans. Both Sánchez 1993 and Escobar 1999 continue the anti-Mexican thesis but strive to place the riot within a larger social and political context. Sánchez explores the process of cultural appropriation and invention, whereas Escobar places the riot within the historical context of the Los Angeles Police Department’s harsh treatment of Mexican Americans. Pagán 2003 rejects the anti-Mexican hysteria thesis as the sole explanation for social tensions and argues that the Zoot Suit riot, as well as the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial, instead derived from competing social tensions that grew out of demographic pressures, city planning, and a street-level insurgency against white privilege.

Acuña, Rodolfo. Occupied America: A History of Chicanos . 7th ed. Boston: Longman, 2011.

The first overview of Mexican American history from a Chicano nationalist perspective, originally published in 1972, which utilizes the anti-Mexican thesis to interpret Mexican American history (including the Zoot Suit riot) and to explain how white Americans came to dominate land that once belonged to Mexico. Devotes a chapter to the riot.

California Legislature. “‘Zoot-Suit’ Riots in Southern California.” In Second Report: Joint Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities in California . By California Legislature. Sacramento: California State Printing Office, 1945.

The Un-American Activities Committee launched its own investigation into the cause of the riot to discover whether “fifth-column” fascist sympathizers were behind the escalating series of street conflicts between Mexican American youth and military men. They also probed the connections that the Communist Party USA had with the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee.

Endore, Guy. The Sleepy Lagoon Mystery . Los Angeles: Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee, 1944.

This 1944 booklet, written by a well-known Hollywood screenwriter and progressive activist, provided an enduring interpretation of why military men attacked zoot-suited youth. Endore alleged that the jury and military men were being controlled by publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, who held a personal grudge against Mexican Americans. Reprinted as recently as 1980.

Escobar, Edward J. Race, Police, and the Making of a Political Identity: Mexican Americans and the Los Angeles Police Department, 1900–1945 . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

Devotes several chapters to the riot and argues that sweeping political reforms in reaction to the rampant vice of the 1920s and 1930s led to the creation of stringent police policies that affected the minority neighborhoods of Los Angeles with special harshness. The crackdown on criminalized social practices led to the perception that minority youth of the 1940s were out of control, and military men responded in attacking so-called zoot suiters.

Himes, Chester B. “Zoot Riots Are Race Riots.” Crisis 50.7 (July 1943): 200–201.

Himes rejected the official declarations of city officials that the Zoot Suit riot was not the result of prejudice against Mexican Americans, and sought to describe clear examples of racial animosity directed toward Mexican American youth that he witnessed in the weeks leading up to the riot.

Mazón, Mauricio. The Zoot-Suit Riots: The Psychology of Symbolic Annihilation . Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984.

Uses psychoanalytic theory to explore why sailors experienced anti-Mexican hysteria in rioting against zoot-suited youth, and argues that they were enacting rituals of erasure against civilian youth that they themselves had been subjected to in being inducted into the military.

McWilliams, Carey. North from Mexico: The Spanish-Speaking People of the United States . Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1949.

In this comprehensive survey of Mexican American history, McWilliams argues, in his chapter devoted to the Zoot Suit riot, that publisher William Randolph Hearst used his sensationalistic Los Angeles newspapers to turn public opinion against Mexican Americans because of his fascist sympathies, and that key city officials, including the Los Angeles Police Department, colluded with his plan to rid the city of Mexican American youth gangs. New edition, updated by Matt S. Meier, published in 1990 (New York: Greenwood).

Pagán, Eduardo Obregón. Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon: Zoot Suits, Race, and Riot in Wartime L.A. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

Provides a comprehensive study of the riot. Arguing against the anti-Mexican thesis as the sole cause of the Zoot Suit riot, Pagán explores how a number of social tensions prior to and during the war, such as demographic pressures, city planning, and a growing street-level revolt against white privilege, culminated in the Zoot Suit riot.

Sánchez, George J. Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900–1945 . New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Arguing against earlier scholarship that saw resistance as the main theme for Mexican American history, Sánchez documents a complex process of social and cultural assimilation for Mexican immigrants and argues that they both resisted and accommodated American culture. Devotes a chapter to the riot, drawing on the anti-Mexican thesis.

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ARTS & CULTURE

A brief history of the zoot suit.

Unraveling the jazzy life of a snazzy style

Alice Gregory

It was June 1943 when the riots broke out. For over a week, white U.S. soldiers and sailors traversed Los Angeles beating up allegedly “unpatriotic” Mexican-American men, identifiable by their conspicuously voluminous attire. It was, as the historian Kathy Peiss writes in  Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style , “perhaps the first time in American history that fashion was believed to be the cause of widespread civil unrest.” Starting this month, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will feature an authentic example of one of these catalyzing ensembles as part of a new exhibition, “ Reigning Men: Fashion in Menswear, 1715–2015 .”

With its super-sized shoulder pads, sprawling lapels and peg leg pants, the zoot suit grew out of the “drape” suits popular in Harlem dance halls in the mid-1930s. The flowing trousers were tapered at the ankles to prevent jitterbugging couples from getting tripped up while they twirled. By the ’40s, the suits were worn by minority men in working-class neighborhoods throughout the country. Though the zoot suit would be donned by the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong, it was “not a costume or uniform from the world of entertainment,” the Chicago big-band trumpeter and clothier Harold Fox once said. “It came right off the street and out of the ghetto.’’

Fox was one among many, from Chicago to Harlem to Memphis, who took credit for inventing the zoot suit—the term came out of African-American slang—but it was actually unbranded and illicit: There was no one designer associated with the look, no department store where you could buy one. These were ad hoc outfits, regular suits bought two sizes too large and then creatively tailored to dandyish effect.

To some men, the suit’s ostentatiousness was a way of refusing to be ignored. The garment had “profound political meaning,” wrote Ralph Ellison, author of  Invisible Man . “For those without other forms of cultural capital,” says Peiss, “fashion can be a way of claiming space for yourself.”

Wartime rations on fabric made wearing such oversized clothing an inherently disobedient act. Langston Hughes wrote in 1943 that for people with a history of cultural and economic poverty, “too much becomes JUST ENOUGH for them.” To underscore the style’s almost treasonous indulgence, press accounts exaggerated the price of zoot suits by upwards of 50 percent. But even the real cost of one was near-prohibitive for the young men who coveted them—Malcolm X, in his autobiography , recounts buying one on credit.

Though policemen slashed some zoot suits to ruins, the more likely reason for their disappearance once the craze faded in the 1950s was less dramatic—most were simply refashioned into other garments. Original specimens are mythically hard to come by: It took curators from LACMA over a decade to find one, and when they did, in 2011, it cost them nearly $80,000, an auction record for an item of 20th-century menswear.

But the suit had a luxuriant afterlife, influencing styles from Canada and France to the Soviet Union and South Africa. It was the subject of the Who’s first single . In 1978, the actor and playwright Luis Valdez wrote Zoot Suit , the first Chicano play on Broadway. The outfit’s iconic shape was taken up in the ’80s by Japanese avant-garde designers, who sent models down the runway in tumescent suiting around the time that MC Hammer put on his drop-crotch pants—causing outrage in the form of widespread hand-wringing over the alleged immorality of sagging pants, a style that has never quite gone out of fashion. By the time a record called “ Zoot Suit Riot ,” by the swing-revival band the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, became a hit in the late-’90s, the suit’s provenance had largely been forgotten. No longer was the zoot suit evocative of the expressive power of fashion for the disenfranchised so much as it was a historical oddity known by a charming name.

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Alice Gregory | | READ MORE

Alice Gregory’s work has appeared in The New Yorker , n+1 , and Harper’s . She is a contributing editor at T , and a columnist for The New York Times Book Review .

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The Zoot Suit Riots, 80 years later

By fidel martinez | los angeles times | jun. 8, 2023 | file photo from la times.

They were targeted and beaten. Stripped of their prized garbs and brutalized in the streets.

This June marks the 80th anniversary of the Zoot Suit Riots, a dark period in Los Angeles and American history in which young Mexican, Filipinx and Black men and boys were attacked by servicemen and white Angelenos, driven by racial and anti-immigrant animus, throughout the city over the course of a week.

To commemorate this event, a group of Times journalists and editors put together this v ital story package.

“The cliche about history repeating itself if history is forgotten is true, but exploring history isn’t just recalling the past,” said Column One editor Steve Padilla, who oversaw the project.

“It’s important to show how the past informs the present, and that was one of the goals of our stories on the Zoot Suit Riots. Another motivating factor behind our work: After 80 years, the riots simply are not as well known as they once were.”

He’s not wrong.

Growing up in Texas, I didn’t learn about the Zoot Suit Riots in school — this isn’t particularly surprising  given how much of U.S. Latinx history is still kept out of high school textbooks . My first exposure to this historic event came through the 1992 film “American Me,” which devotes  a nearly six-minute montage  to the white rage the parents of the protagonist endured. It wasn’t until college, when I took a course titled the History of Mexican Americans Since 1848 that I began to learn the extent of what transpired.

Central to The Times’ package is this  comprehensive timeline  compiled and written by multiplatform editor Christian Orozco, which not only outlines the events that took place, but also where. It connects the occurrences of that week with other historically relevant events like the Pearl Harbor bombing and the Sleepy Lagoon trials that fed into the racial violence.

Orozco did a fantastic job of digging through the archives, including our own coverage that further fueled the violence.

“Sadly, one of the many newspapers cheering on the marauding servicemen was The Times,” said Padilla, noting that an editor had brought up in an early meeting that “unlike other civil disturbances in American history,” this dark stain was “essentially state-sanctioned chaos.”

“It was only proper, and honest, to detail our own complicity.”

Padilla also shared that several Times staffers had a personal connection to the Zoot Suit Riots.

“One reporter said his father bought a zoot suit, only to have  his  father cut it up with scissors,” he said. “My own father once told me he had wanted a zoot suit, but his mother wouldn’t allow it. Good thing, too. Dad recalled seeing servicemen beat up a zoot suiter on 4th Street in Boyle Heights.”

Another key component of the package is this Column One written by Gustavo Arellano, which recounts the often  overlooked support given by the Black Angeleno community . It’s an aspect of the riots I personally knew very little about.

“The leaders of the Black community really seemed to understand that they weren’t safe just because they weren’t the primary target,” Kevin Leonard, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, told Arellano. “They connected it to Black experiences in the South. As long as people were allowed to be scapegoated or turned into victims of violence, then no one was safe.”

I implore you to  read through the stories , even if you think you knew everything there was to know about the Zoot Suit Riots. I’m willing to bet that you’ll learn something new. I certainly did.

And finally, I do want to reiterate my colleague Steve Padilla’s sentiment that history is bound to repeat itself if forgotten. Though the Zoot Suit Riots took place 80 years ago, the  marginalization and targeting  of  minority communities  are very much still alive.

COMMEMORATING THE FIRST MAJOR U.S. IMPERIALIST WAR ...

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The Zoot Suit

Updated 23 September 2022

Subject Movies

Downloads 52

Category Entertainment

Topic Zoot Suit

The Zoot Suit: A Classic Men's Style

Symbol of racial discrimination, exaggerated version of drape suit, hypermasculine, hypersexual, representation of non-white identities, representation of non-white identities in zoot suit.

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Essay 2. Thesis statement  The zoot suit is a fashion trend that started in Chic

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Essay 2. Thesis statement  The zoot suit is a fashion trend that started in Chicago in the 1930s and gained popularity over time, eventually being adopted by young Mexicans in Los Angeles. The zoot suit is a way for Mexican Americans to show their cultural identity. It defied conventional fashion norms and expressed resistance to prejudice and cultural pride. Quote 4. ‘’ The Zoot Suit Riots were not just about clothing; they were about racial prejudice,economic disparities, and the marginalization of minority communities in American society.’’ The book ‘’Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon: Zoot Suits, race, and riot in Wartime L.A.’’ by Eduardo Obregon Pagan. Quote 5 Punishment of the guilty in crimes of violence, “regardless of what clothes they wear, whether they be zoot suits, police, Army or Navy uniforms,” was demanded today by a Citizens’ Committee appointed by Governor Earl Warren to investigate the Los Angeles outbreaks of the last ten days involving “zoot-suit” wearers and service men. By Lawrence E. Davies NEW YORK TIMES, JUNE 13, 1943 LOS ANGELES GROUP INSISTS RIOTS HALT https://web.viu.ca/davies/H324War/Zootsuit.riots.media.1943.htm Quote 6 ‘’For two nights the mobs of soldiers and sailors had found poor hunting. In long caravans of cabs and private cars they had toured the Mexican sections, armed with sticks and weighted ropes, crashing into movie houses, looking for zoos-suited pachucos, the little Mexican-American youths. But they had found only a few dozen, and not all of them even wore zoot suits. They had broken the jaw of a 12-year-old boy. Said the boy, in the hospital’’ by . TIME MAGAZINE, JUNE 21, 1943 ZOOT-SUIT WAR https://web.viu.ca/davies/H324War/Zootsuit.riots.media.1943.htm

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