Thread by @Americas_Crimes

This week in 1943, thousands of US military members, racist white civilians & off-duty cops formed mobs in LA & attacked any Mexican-American youth & other minorities they encountered. The mob injured hundreds w/ pipes, bottles & clubs in a week of violence. #ZootSuitRiot

At the time, Mexican-American youth & other minorities were demonized in the US. The jazz-influenced pachuco subculture & its zoot suit clothing--both popular with minorities--were deemed identifiers of gang & criminal affiliation by the media.

For many Mexican-Americans & other minorities, the pachuco subculture represented a spirit of defiance against US segregation. Racist mobs were anxious to put these immigrants "in their place"; they searched for anyone wearing a zoot suit & attacked them, ripping their suit off.

The Los Angeles police--who actually joined in the mob attacks--arrested only the victims; at least 500 Mexican Americans were arrested on charges ranging from "rioting" to "vagrancy”.

One witness to the riots, journalist Carey McWilliams wrote:

“Marching through the streets of downtown Los Angeles, a mob of several thousand soldiers, sailors, and civilians, proceeded to beat up every zoot suiter they could find..."

McWilliams continued, "The mob pushed its way into a theater & ordered the management to turn on the house lights and then ran up and down the aisles dragging Mexicans, Filipinos & Negroes out of their seats & into the streets where they were beaten with a sadistic frenzy.”

In another incident, a black defense plant worker was yanked off a streetcar & his eyes was gouged out with a knife.

The Los Angeles press lauded the racist attacks, describing them as having a "cleansing effect" to rid LA of "miscreants" and "hoodlums". Shortly after the riot, zoot suits were banned in LA.

The American writers Luis Valdez, Ralph Ellison, and Richard Wright were inspired by the zoot suit riots & the activists Malcolm X, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta were pachucos and zoot-suiters, who later became champions of residence against racial and economic oppression.