Zoot Suit Fad and Riots
In the late 1930s and early 1940s, zoot suits were all the rage among the fashionable and hip in American cities. The outsized zoots had a distinctive look, with a long coat featuring wide lapels and broad shoulder pads, and pegged trousers that were high waisted, wide legged, and tight cuffed. Pointy French style shoes, plus a watch chain dangling from the belt to the knees, then back to a side pocket, were de rigueur. Finally, a pork pie hat or fedora, color coordinated and sometimes featuring a long feather, completed the ensemble.
Zoots were first associated with African Americans in Harlem, Chicago, and Detroit, then crossed over and became popularized by Jazz singers and entertainers. In addition to African Americans, the outfit became hugely popular among Italian Americans, Latinos, and Filipinos. While also worn by many whites, the zoot suit’s “ethnic” origins and aura did not sit well with many of the straitlaced and traditional, or just plain racist.
Zoot suits were luxury items, as a lot of materials and tailoring effort went into making them. When America entered WWII, the US War Production Board criticized the outfits for wasting materials and production time better used in the war effort. The outfits were seen by their young wearers as declarations of their individuality, freedom, or even rebelliousness. They were seen by others as self indulgent and unpatriotic extravagances during wartime. Life magazine did a feature on youth sporting zoots in 1942, and concluded that “they were solid arguments for lowering the Army draft age to include 18-year-olds“. The rest of the media joined in with sensational accounts, often wildly exaggerating the costs and price tags of zoots.
A backlash thus began building against zoot suits. Those clad in the outfits were often berated and verbally assailed in public, and sometimes physically attacked. Cops sometimes stopped and hassled zoot wearers, and ruined their suits by slashing them. However, the most dramatic manifestation of the backlash would occur in Los Angeles in June of 1943, in what came to be known as the Zoot Suit Riots.
In the preceding year, local newspapers had whipped up racial tensions by harping on a non-existent “crime wave”, allegedly caused by Mexican-American youths. Soon, a media campaign was in full swing, calling for action against “zoot suiters”. LA police responded with frequent roundups and arrests of hundreds of young Mexican-Americans, guilty of nothing more than wearing oversized outfits. Tensions were further exacerbated by the conviction for murder of 9 young Mexican Americans of murder, following a controversial trial amidst a wave of anti Mexican-American hysteria. The trial had been a travesty, and the convictions were overturned on appeal, but in trial’s aftermath, racist hatred against Mexican-Americans reached a peak in Los Angeles.
LA became a major military hub during WWII, as hundreds of thousands of servicemen were stationed there or passed through en route to other postings. To many white military personnel, the wearing of zoot suits was viewed as a public flouting of the war effort. Mexican-Americans came to be seen as unpatriotic – even though they were actually overrepresented in America’s armed forces, serving at a higher rate than whites. As a group, they also had one of the highest percentages of Congressional Medal of Honor recipients.
Rioting erupted in June of 1943, as mobs of white soldiers and sailors roamed that city, beating up allegedly “unpatriotic” Mexican-Americans wearing zoot suits. While the rioters focused on Latino youths, young African Americans and Filipinos were also targeted. Copycat riots by European Americans against Latinos spread throughout California to San Diego and Oakland, then across the country to Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York City. It was the first time in American history that fashion caused literal rioting and widespread civil unrest.