Zoot Suit Riots

Words: 937
Pages: 4
Open Document
The two historical events Sleepy Lagoon Murder and Zoot Suit riots stimulated the writing of zoot suit play. In 1942, members of the 38th Street Gang were wrongly accused and convicted of a murder known as the Sleepy Lagoon Murder Trial. This trial exhibited the racial intolerance against Mexicans in Los Angeles. In 1943, these tensions increased and led to the famous Zoot Suit Riots, an intense clash between Pachucos and law enforcement of Los Angeles. The play describes these events through the perspective of a group of Mexican American youth. As a playwright, Valdez explored issues relevant to the Chicano beyond the fields developing a core of actors who are no longer committed to only one cause and one style. Valdez describes Chicano theater …show more content…
Based on incidents that occurred when Pachuco gangs stirred hostility in Los Angeles during World War II, but concerned with the 1970’s as well, the play lashes society for abusing its own children. For poor, dark-skinned Mexican-Americans, injustice has become a way of life. Products of slums and victims of discrimination, Chicanos seek escape wherever they can find it—in music, dancing, drinking, and extravagant display of costume. Even Lt. Edwards, a Los Angeles policeman, discerns the root of their problem. “Slums breed crime, fellas,” he announces to an assembled group of reporters, waiting eagerly to chronicle the latest Chicano excesses for a bigoted readership. “That’s your story.” The idea that depressed surroundings produce angry, scared people, that vice and crime can be extirpated only if the environment that breeds them is abolished is hardly a new or radical notion: Benjamin Franklin taught it more than two hundred years earlier in Philadelphia. As foreigners in their own country, Chicanos suffer not only the arrogance and rejection of Anglo society but also great psychic stress as they struggle, half-unwillingly, to observe the customs of their persecutors, to accept a way of life that they do not really understand. Attempting to adhere to strictures they recognize as socially approved but unwilling to abandon their own language and culture, they find themselves caught in the
Show More

Related Documents: Zoot Suit Riots

Essay On The Zoot Suit Riots

The Zoot Suit Riots were attacks in June 1943 in LA, California. These attacks started from two latino men having a disagreement, that led to the death of one man, Jose Diaz. He was beaten and stabbed, and his body left in the cold. This was a breaking point for the Mexican AMerican community, and the police around started breaking down on the latino youth. The police started beating any young latino that looked suspicious, or simply didn’t respect them. This caused kids to be rebellious which usually…

Words 413 - Pages 2

Zoot Suit Riot Research Paper

PACHUCOS, The Mexican American Zoot Gang of the 1940s. “100 years prior to the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943, Los Angeles, California belonged to Mexico. Businesses were conducted in Spanish and the streets held names such as Eternidad and Chapule (Zoot Suits Riot History, 2012). By the year 1942, the name, Nuestras Seora de Los Angeles was changed to Los Angeles and street names like Eternidad became Broadway, and Chapule became Pearl Street (Zoot Suits Riot History, 2012).” The Streets are Buzzing…

Words 941 - Pages 4

Zoot Suit Riots Research Paper

2013 ENG 1A Zapata Short Research Project: The Zoot Suit Riots There have been three major riots in L.A. since 1942, and coincidentally or not, each has a direct correlation with racial bias of the judicial system. While there is good cause to question whether mob mentality took over and created the riots themselves, the circumstances that created the perfect atmosphere for violence cannot be discounted. The Zoot Suit Riots of 1943 involved the predominately Mexican youth…

Words 603 - Pages 3

Zoot Suit Riots Research Paper

Samera Hashi Multicultural Literature Mrs. Oaks 3 Feb. 2018 Mexican Immigration & Zoot Suit Riots Mexican Immigrants had their share of struggling with equality, as they would try to get better rights by coming to the United States. “In 2014, more than 11.7 million Mexican immigrants resided in the United States…”. They tend to have much lower education and are very likely to be in a service type of profession. Mexican immigrants had lower incomes compared to the foreign and native-born population…

Words 395 - Pages 2

Zoot Suit Riots: A Comparative Analysis

have been burned to the ground more frequently than any other city in the country and have experienced violent riots such as in the Zoot Suit Riots following the beatings of Latinos by white police officers. Are we truly in a state of progress? I certainly do not espouse the notion that we live in a world today that is vastly different from the one 25 years ago, in which the Rodney King riots took place in retaliation against the brutal beating of the black individual Rodney King by a group of white…

Words 480 - Pages 2

A Comparison Of Zoot Suit Riots And The Detroit Race Riot Of 1943

Sometimes rioting can be caused by a deeper rooted issue such as racism. The two riots that are known as the “Zoot Suit Riots” and “the Detroit Race Riot of 1943” are two examples of how racial tension between two groups can influence people into rioting. On the day of June 3rd, 1943 a series of violent confrontations between whites and latinos known as the Zoot Suit Riots erupted in Los Angeles, California. The riots were a sequence of brutal disputes between crowds of white servicemen, police officers…

Words 726 - Pages 3

The Sleeping Lagoon Case And The Zoot Suit Riots

The Sleeping Lagoon Case and the Zoot Suit Riots was a cause of an incomplete investigation by law enforcement which lead to false accusations and the start of confrontation between White and Mexican men. Furthermore, the body of Jose Diaz, a man who was murdered, whose body was found near Sleepy Lagoon resulted in the arrest of over six hundred Mexican-American youth. Also, some of the youth were indicted and convicted of first-degree murder of Jose Diaz. Additionally, the Mexican-American youth…

Words 188 - Pages 1

Sleepy Lagoon Riot

sentenced to a ridiculous amount of time for a crime that doesn’t fit the time. This can be seen in Sleepy Lagoon Trail and the current incarceration system we have. With unfair justice comes chaos and wanting to change the system as seen by the Zoot Suit Riots in 1940’s and the Black Lives Matter movement in 2016. I will be comparing and contrasting these two topics and the effects it has on citizens lives. The Sleepy Lagoon Trial is a horrific incident that takes place in commerce, California on…

Words 386 - Pages 2

The American Dream In The 1940s Research Paper

Carrel Ogunnaike Ms. Kelley Zoot Suit 4-08-2024. The American Dream in the 1940s The American Dream was not accessible to everyone who lived during the 1940s in America because not everyone had the same lifestyle. In one of the lines, Pachuco said, “We hear a siren, then another, and another. It sounds like gangbusters.” In other words, this supporting quote means that there were a lot of police officers or other people who took part in breaking up criminal gangs. How did the American Dream look…

Words 452 - Pages 2

Essay On Zoot Suit

Zoot Suits were very popular but also very controversial. It was one of the early signs of race and equality, but also unfair treatment to people of color. The zoot suit was one part of the jazz world that visually defied the norms of segregation. Furthermore, 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. For one, the people that wore these did not know the consequences…

Words 396 - Pages 2