Zoot Suit Riots Analysis

In 1943 the suit zoot riots occurred, this is the event where “a mob of U.S. servicemen took to the streets in taxicabs and began attacking Latinos and stripping them of their suits”. In the local papers it was made seem like the racial attacks were a vigilante respond to an immigrant crime wave and police would mostly only arrest the Latinos who fought back. These riots demonstrates how unfair the law enforcement was to the Latinos being attacked and how badly Latinos were treated by their peers. This type of mistreatment and discrimination towards them was not uncommon In the 1900s, in fact latinos were heavily discriminated against in the 1900s.

In May of 1943, the FBI issued a nationwide search of draft dodgers which allowed them to find 638 fugitives who were trying to escape the draft. This left hundreds of servicemen were on the attack in Los Angeles for a particular group of people who were known as zoot-suiters, or Mexican-American people who were easily identified by their excessive forms of dress. The zoot-suiters were not only outcasts by their choice of dress, but also due to the fact they were recent immigrants who were pushed from their former home in Southern California to their new home in the urban areas of Los Angeles due to the Depression back in the late 1930s. These young Mexican-Americans were the new minority in town, and were deprived of jobs and resources which

The media are often subject to scrutiny with reference to their coverage regarding Black demonstrations, focusing their attention on violence and other forms of public disturbance, as opposed to raising awareness to the reasoning, and message behind these

Racial tensions in Los Angeles came into the public eye when a gang of sailors beat up a group of Mexican-Americans wearing “zoot suits” in June of 1943. This led to the mass incarceration of these individuals known as “pachucos”. This initial incident was followed by days of violence in which servicemen roamed the Los Angeles area and physically assaulted any Mexican American they found in zoot suit apparel. The following two nights, the attacks progressed and though a few sailors were arrested while others were warned not to proceed in further assaults, word of the rioting spread and more military personnel from other areas of the city joined in as well. These events were preceded by increased racial tension between Mexican-Americans and Anglo Saxons.

Media is focused on people marginalized in society due to race, ethnicity and sexuality. It is based on well-known stereotypes and reinforces them. Moral panic sends society into mass hysteria over an issue or an event that occurs. Stanley Cohen believed that media created a moral panic. Stanley had published a book on folk devils and moral panics (1972) which says that moral panic occurs due to people or groups become threats to society and interests.

In the article “Zoot-Suit Fighting Spreads on Coast” (1943) it discusses the racial tension between sailors and soldiers and the “zoot suits” on the west coast. Zoot Suits were mainly Mexican Americans and some African Americans who wore certain outfits that showed that they opposed these “wartime authorities” on the west coast. Most of the Zoot Suits were young men, some as young as twelve years old. This racial tension eventually turned into the soldiers and zoot suits hating each other and this eventually resulted in a week of rioting where more than 150 people were hurt. During this time in 1943 the US was still fighting a world war, so there was no need for anymore chaos to be going on.

When it was released that Officer Wilson was found not guilty, things got very rowdy in the small town in Missouri. The media played a big role in this outbreak because they have a way of twisting words, interviewing the wrong people, and making the incident bigger than it needs to be. The black people broke out into riots, set things on fire, and broke into places. How do we know this? The news had live footage of the building being burned and the riots.

Imagine trying to survive when the stock market crashes, thousands of banks close, and the Dust Bowl destroys crops. In the 1930s, the United States had a period of financial crisis, known as the Great Depression. The stock market crash, the closure of thousands of banks, and the Dust Bowl wrecked havoc on almost all of the citizens in the United States. The Great Depression led to farmers losing their farms, millions of people becoming migrant workers, and unsafe conditions for laborers. Many farmers lost their land in the 1930s.

The 1920s to late 1930s were a very controversial. A lot changed and flipped back and forth. The 1920s were full of cultural change. We were very conservative and people wanted change. After the stock market crash the government want to help bring Americans out of the gutter with the bad economy.

In America, Media bias is everywhere, in the United States all the information that an average American received through everyday sources, the news was most likely processed through the media and told through a biased point of view, when the media gets their hands on news if it is important then it probably won’t be talked about or downplayed no matter the source like in the newspaper, radio, television, movies, as well as other outlets that the media uses, the media only seems to share the news that they find interesting, even then the media would most likely have changed the story, in what they say is just tweaked news, what actually happened and what really happened would be two different stories, also the story would be told from one person

The media is illuminating racial relations in the South and they are showing how people in the North are being treated. When people in the North sees how the segregationists are treating African Americans in the South, they support the side of integration. In “A Mighty Long Way”, Carlotta said that, “Finally one of them delivered a crushing blow to the back of Wilson”s head with an heavy object believed to be a brick” (pg.85 Lanier). People are seeing how white racists are attacking African-Americans.

In 1886, a peaceful rally meant to shine a light on the lack of enforcement of the eight-hour workday at Haymarket Square in Chicago turned into a riot. Towards the end of the event, an unknown person threw a bomb towards police officers who had come to break up the rally. Several officers were killed. Not knowing who threw the bomb, police arrested several well-known anarchists and labor activists. The argument was that these activists had encouraged people to attend the rally and ultimately "aided, abetted, and encouraged" the use of violence and the murder of police officers (Linder, 1995).

The photograph of the “Attack Dogs,” reveals the unethical treatment protesters experienced from the Birmingham police department as they were attacked by their highly trained and dangerous dogs, while they were fighting for equality and human rights. The image displays an attempt by the white police officers to show authority, dominance, to create fear, and suppress any efforts of the Civil Rights Movement’s activists, as racist sentiments were extremely encrypted among many individuals in the South. Life magazine was considered by segregation supporters as extremely liberal and biased, yet the photographs that were published in Life magazine were so real and shocking that resulted in high support for the activist

In today’s time, we still see racism in many forms like the 1920’s riots and court rulings. One of the riots in the 1920’s that have some of the same purposes as today’s riots is the “Tulsa Riot”. The Tulsa Riot was said to

The worldwide economic downturn known as The Great Depression took the world by storm. It was during this dilemma that every group of americans were immensely affected. None were affected as much as African Americans and racial status. It was this depression that made the already problematic lives of the African Americans even more challenging. Factors which which influenced racial issues against blacks in the early 1920’s through 1930’s were the Second Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow Laws, the fight for jobs, and the racial riots/lynchings that followed.