A Very Brief History Of The Zoot Suit Riots

People of Mexican ancestry have a long and well-known career in United States military history, serving in the American Revolution and in every military task since then. Their bravery and heroism was especially noticeable during World War II when the United States joined the Allies against the Axis Powers in 1941. Considering Mexican American youth during World War II, musical genres were developed as a response to the pachuco and Mexican American youth culture.

In 1942, a young Latino man was murdered after spending the evening out with friends in a barrio near Los Angeles. This became known as the Sleepy Lagoon murder. “The Zoot Suit riots were a series of uprisings in 1943 that erupted in Los Angeles between white sailors and soldiers stationed throughout the city and Latino youths, who were identifiable by their zoot-suits” (Sanchez). The Pachucos were depicted as delinquents and rebels in the media. This negative portrayal and the increasing anti-Mexican sentiment all set the stage for the Zoot-Suit Riots. These anti-Mexican riots often featured the ritualistic stripping of the zoot suiters.

“In the late 1930’s young Mexican- American men and women rejected by both American and Mexican society designed a counterculture that expressed social tensions through attitude, fashion, dance and eclectic musical tastes. Known as pachucos and pachucas, they favored zoot suits and big band swing. In the late 1940’s A Mexican American guitarist from Arizona named Lalo Guerrero created American jump blues, or pachuco boogie, which used swing, boogie woogie and rumba rhythms with lyrics in Spanish and calo, the pachuco’s hipster street language” (Yglesias). Pachuco boogie excitedly renovated the painful “in between” experience of Mexican American fans, brought together Chicano, Anglo and African American audiences and laid the foundation of Chicano