The Zoot Suit Riots: The WWII Race Riots Of Los Angeles | Wartime Crime | Timeline



During WW2 in Los Angeles, white servicemen and civilians attack Hispanic and other minority youths who are seen as unpatriotic due to the style of clothes they wear.

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26 thoughts on “The Zoot Suit Riots: The WWII Race Riots Of Los Angeles | Wartime Crime | Timeline”

  1. LA was a cesspool then. And today, it is still trying to maintain its "greatness". Certainly the LAPD does its best to continue its tradition.

    Today this is just utter embarrassment. At the time, it would be horrific to live under. And I won't pretend I'm some angel to soothe my ego – if I lived then I don't see how I would be any different than any other Angeleno. That's a shameful reality.

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  2. This is a pretty one sided view of things. Apparently there was no Mexican criminal problem in LA to speak of. The 38th Street Gang was a creation of the newspapers and the police. Most of those attacked were between 13 and 14. To begin with, this is not Jazz society. This is swing music that was popular across the country. The Zoot suit was popular among any youths who wanted to appear cool including blacks and others. (My Jewish uncle was an advocate of it). Multi ethnic groups lived in most large cities especially New York, Chicago, and Baltimore. Yet it was only in LA that zoot suited ethnics were attacked? This in an attempt at a tautology trying to explain what happened by finding a cause that might not have been there. Especially transferring public fears of a Japanese invasion to Mexican youths who had lived there for years seems the most unrealistic idea.

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  3. I am disappointed that there were no interviews with the sailors who were involved explaining their perspective (or at least someone speaking from that side of the issue). The whole presentation was extremely one-sided.

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  4. by the looks of los angeles now on a map. looks like we won 😶 but we love everyone, some of us as many races have few bad apples. Its all love, give what you are given. they did like us men but loved our senoritas lol 😁

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  5. The military repeats the same exact behavior. Except they do it when our military is on deployment. They treat other people from other countries differently because of the idea that they're not on American soil, so they don't have to treat them constitutionally.

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  6. My family lost over 7 young men to the Pacific, in the navy, all Mexicans who fought for everyone in this country…..and my favorite picture is of my great grandfather and great grandmother in downtown LA, his zoot suit and her pretty dress😀

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  7. Glad to see that a lot of people are picking up on the fact that this is a bunch of Leftist propagandistic gas-lighting! I posted a comment earlier just putting things in a little bit of perspective, not rude or offensive at all, and it was promptly taken down! What're they afraid of???

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  8. Many Confederates escaped to Southern California towards the end of the Civil War. They bought hundreds & thousands of acres of land & grew orange groves, built huge elegant homes ~ nameslong since hidden by areas developed in Los Angeles ~ Lincoln Heights for example ~ long forgotten exempt their descendants ~ Confederates ~ so arms not open to laboring class but to employ for labor ~ that undercurrent remained the "Well to Do" for many decades all the way up to know ~ Conferderates. in Louisiana had known the Spanish the European Spanish ~ But Mexican Latino was unknown to them ~ Out of Context Culturally to these old school Europeans French & Spanish from Louisiana ~ No common ground ~

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  9. My grandparents on my mother's side lived next to Japanese in Oxnard CA. Both had farms and my grandparents used their farm until the war ended with their blessing. At which time they returned their property❤

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  10. Fact against fiction. The zoot suit was not limited to one racial group and those who serve in uniform came from every one of these groups in the USA.
    This last fact may have been hiden by the media and the separation of races in the military at the time.

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