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| zoot suit: Zoot Suit & Other Plays Luis Valdez, 1992-04-30 This critically acclaimed play by Luis Valdez cracks open the depiction of Chicanos on stage, challenging viewers to revisit a troubled moment in our nationÕs history. From the moment the myth-infused character El Pachuco burst onto the stage, cutting his way through the drop curtain with a switchblade, Luis Valdez spurred a revolution in Chicano theater. Focusing on the events surrounding the Sleepy Lagoon Murder Trial of 1942 and the ensuing Zoot Suit Riots that turned Los Angeles into a bloody war zone, this is a gritty and vivid depiction of the horrifying violence and racism suffered by young Mexican Americans on the home front during World War II. ValdezÕs cadre of young urban characters struggle with the stereotypes and generalizations of AmericaÕs dominant culture, the questions of assimilation and patriotism, and a desire to rebel against the mainstream pressures that threaten to wipe them out. Experimenting with brash forms of narration, pop culture of the war era, and complex characterizations, this quintessential exploration of the Mexican-American experience in the United States during the 1940Õs was the first, and only, Chicano play to open on Broadway. This collection contains three of playwright and screenwriter Luis ValdezÕs most important and recognized plays: Zoot Suit, Bandido! and I DonÕt Have to Show You No Stinking Badges. The anthology also includes an introduction by noted theater critic Dr. Jorge Huerta of the University of California-San Diego. Luis Valdez, the most recognized and celebrated Hispanic playwright of our times, is the director of the famous farm-worker theater, El Teatro Campesino. |
| zoot suit: From Coveralls to Zoot Suits Elizabeth Rachel Escobedo, 2013 From Coveralls to Zoot Suits: The Lives of Mexican American Women on the World War II Home Front |
| zoot suit: The Woman in the Zoot Suit Catherine S. Ramírez, 2009-01-16 The Mexican American woman zoot suiter, or pachuca, often wore a V-neck sweater or a long, broad-shouldered coat, a knee-length pleated skirt, fishnet stockings or bobby socks, platform heels or saddle shoes, dark lipstick, and a bouffant. Or she donned the same style of zoot suit that her male counterparts wore. With their striking attire, pachucos and pachucas represented a new generation of Mexican American youth, which arrived on the public scene in the 1940s. Yet while pachucos have often been the subject of literature, visual art, and scholarship, The Woman in the Zoot Suit is the first book focused on pachucas. Two events in wartime Los Angeles thrust young Mexican American zoot suiters into the media spotlight. In the Sleepy Lagoon incident, a man was murdered during a mass brawl in August 1942. Twenty-two young men, all but one of Mexican descent, were tried and convicted of the crime. In the Zoot Suit Riots of June 1943, white servicemen attacked young zoot suiters, particularly Mexican Americans, throughout Los Angeles. The Chicano movement of the 1960s–1980s cast these events as key moments in the political awakening of Mexican Americans and pachucos as exemplars of Chicano identity, resistance, and style. While pachucas and other Mexican American women figured in the two incidents, they were barely acknowledged in later Chicano movement narratives. Catherine S. Ramírez draws on interviews she conducted with Mexican American women who came of age in Los Angeles in the late 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s as she recovers the neglected stories of pachucas. Investigating their relative absence in scholarly and artistic works, she argues that both wartime U.S. culture and the Chicano movement rejected pachucas because they threatened traditional gender roles. Ramírez reveals how pachucas challenged dominant notions of Mexican American and Chicano identity, how feminists have reinterpreted la pachuca, and how attention to an overlooked figure can disclose much about history making, nationalism, and resistant identities. |
| zoot suit: Lizard in a Zoot Suit Marco Finnegan, 2020-08-04 Los Angeles, 1943. It's the era of the Zoot Suit Riots, and Flaca and Cuata have a problem. It's bigger than being grounded by their strict mother. It's bigger than tensions with the soldiers stationed nearby. And it's shaped like a five-foot-tall lizard. When a lost member of an unknown underground species needs help, the sisters must scramble to keep their new friend away from a corrupt military scientist—but they'll do it in style. Cartoonist Marco Finnegan presents Lizard in a Zoot Suit, an outrageous, historical, sci-fi graphic novel. [Lizard in a Zoot Suit] is both a politically charged drama and a pulpy sci-fi story all in one, and an ideal graphic novel for Young Adults.—Comicon.com A new YA graphic novel [that] takes a moment in real world history and turns it into the basis for a thrilling adventure that is never anything less than stylish.—The Hollywood Reporter |
| zoot suit: Zoot Suit Kathy Peiss, 2011-05-23 ZOOT SUIT (n.): the ultimate in clothes. The only totally and truly American civilian suit. —Cab Calloway, The Hepster's Dictionary, 1944 Before the fashion statements of hippies, punks, or hip-hop, there was the zoot suit, a striking urban look of the World War II era that captivated the imagination. Created by poor African American men and obscure tailors, the drape shape was embraced by Mexican American pachucos, working-class youth, entertainers, and swing dancers, yet condemned by the U.S. government as wasteful and unpatriotic in a time of war. The fashion became notorious when it appeared to trigger violence and disorder in Los Angeles in 1943—events forever known as the zoot suit riot. In its wake, social scientists, psychiatrists, journalists, and politicians all tried to explain the riddle of the zoot suit, transforming it into a multifaceted symbol: to some, a sign of social deviance and psychological disturbance, to others, a gesture of resistance against racial prejudice and discrimination. As controversy swirled at home, young men in other places—French zazous, South African tsotsi, Trinidadian saga boys, and Russian stiliagi—made the American zoot suit their own. In Zoot Suit, historian Kathy Peiss explores this extreme fashion and its mysterious career during World War II and after, as it spread from Harlem across the United States and around the world. She traces the unfolding history of this style and its importance to the youth who adopted it as their uniform, and at the same time considers the way public figures, experts, political activists, and historians have interpreted it. This outré style was a turning point in the way we understand the meaning of clothing as an expression of social conditions and power relations. Zoot Suit offers a new perspective on youth culture and the politics of style, tracing the seam between fashion and social action. |
| zoot suit: The Power of the Zoot Luis Alvarez, 2008-06-02 Flamboyant zoot suit culture, with its ties to fashion, jazz and swing music, jitterbug and Lindy Hop dancing, unique patterns of speech, and even risqué experimentation with gender and sexuality, captivated the country's youth in the 1940s. The Power of the Zoot is the first book to give national consideration to this famous phenomenon. Providing a new history of youth culture based on rare, in-depth interviews with former zoot-suiters, Luis Alvarez explores race, region, and the politics of culture in urban America during World War II. He argues that Mexican American and African American youths, along with many nisei and white youths, used popular culture to oppose accepted modes of youthful behavior, the dominance of white middle-class norms, and expectations from within their own communities. |
| zoot suit: The Little Black Dress and Zoot Suits Alison Behnke, 2012-01-01 Looks at the different modes of dress in America in the mid twentieth century, from every day clothes to high fashion. |
| zoot suit: The Zoot-Suit Riots Mauricio Mazón, 2010-07-05 “The most incisive analytic study yet produced by a Chicano scholar . . . Mazón looks at the bloody incidents that erupted in Los Angeles during June, 1943.” —California History Los Angeles, the summer of 1943. For ten days in June, Anglo servicemen and civilians clashed in the streets of the city with young Mexican Americans whose fingertip coats and pegged, draped trousers announced their rebellion. At their height, the riots involved several thousand men and women, fighting with fists, rocks, sticks, and sometimes knives. In the end none were killed, few were seriously injured, and property damage was slight and yet, even today, the zoot-suit riots are remembered and hold emotional and symbolic significance for Mexican Americans and Anglos alike. The causes of the rioting were complex, as Mazón demonstrates in this illuminating analysis of their psychodynamics. Based in part on previously undisclosed FBI and military records, this engrossing study goes beyond sensational headlines and biased memories to provide an understanding of the zoot-suit riots in the context of both Mexican American and Anglo social history. “The latest scholarly work to probe the significance of the brawls that erupted in Los Angeles between uniformed servicemen and young Mexican-Americans in June, 1943 . . . Mazon’s contribution is a psychohistory of the riots in which he concludes that they were not as dangerous, or even riotous, as often portrayed.” —Los Angeles Times “In the nascent field of Chicano history psychohistorical studies are not abundant. Thus Mazón makes an immense contribution to the study of the Mexican American.” —American Historical Review |
| zoot suit: Jazz Owls Perfection Learning Corporation, 2020 |
| zoot suit: Zoot Suit Kathy Peiss, 2011-05-23 ZOOT SUIT (n.): the ultimate in clothes. The only totally and truly American civilian suit. —Cab Calloway, The Hepster's Dictionary, 1944 Before the fashion statements of hippies, punks, or hip-hop, there was the zoot suit, a striking urban look of the World War II era that captivated the imagination. Created by poor African American men and obscure tailors, the drape shape was embraced by Mexican American pachucos, working-class youth, entertainers, and swing dancers, yet condemned by the U.S. government as wasteful and unpatriotic in a time of war. The fashion became notorious when it appeared to trigger violence and disorder in Los Angeles in 1943—events forever known as the zoot suit riot. In its wake, social scientists, psychiatrists, journalists, and politicians all tried to explain the riddle of the zoot suit, transforming it into a multifaceted symbol: to some, a sign of social deviance and psychological disturbance, to others, a gesture of resistance against racial prejudice and discrimination. As controversy swirled at home, young men in other places—French zazous, South African tsotsi, Trinidadian saga boys, and Russian stiliagi—made the American zoot suit their own. In Zoot Suit, historian Kathy Peiss explores this extreme fashion and its mysterious career during World War II and after, as it spread from Harlem across the United States and around the world. She traces the unfolding history of this style and its importance to the youth who adopted it as their uniform, and at the same time considers the way public figures, experts, political activists, and historians have interpreted it. This outré style was a turning point in the way we understand the meaning of clothing as an expression of social conditions and power relations. Zoot Suit offers a new perspective on youth culture and the politics of style, tracing the seam between fashion and social action. |
| zoot suit: Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon Eduardo Obregón Pagán, 2004-07-21 The notorious 1942 Sleepy Lagoon murder trial in Los Angeles concluded with the conviction of seventeen young Mexican American men for the alleged gang slaying of fellow youth Jose Diaz. Just five months later, the so-called Zoot Suit Riot erupted, as white soldiers in the city attacked minority youths and burned their distinctive zoot suits. Eduardo Obregon Pagan here provides the first comprehensive social history of both the trial and the riot and argues that they resulted from a volatile mix of racial and social tensions that had long been simmering. In reconstructing the lives of the murder victim and those accused of the crime, Pagan contends that neither the convictions (which were based on little hard evidence) nor the ensuing riot arose simply from anti-Mexican sentiment. He demonstrates instead that a variety of pre-existing stresses, including demographic pressures, anxiety about nascent youth culture, and the war effort all contributed to the social tension and the eruption of violence. Moreover, he recovers a multidimensional picture of Los Angeles during World War II that incorporates the complex intersections of music, fashion, violence, race relations, and neighborhood activism. Drawing upon overlooked evidence, Pagan concludes by reconstructing the murder scene and proposes a compelling theory about what really happened the night of the murder. |
| zoot suit: Stylin' Shane White, Graham J. White, 1998 An exploration of African-American style from its African origins to the 1940s, looking at the ways in which African-American men and women have expressed themselves through clothing, hairstyles, gestures, dance, and other forms of bodily display. |
| zoot suit: Pachucas and Pachucos in Tucson Laura L. Cummings, 2015-10-19 When the Zoot Suit Riots ignited in Los Angeles in 1943, they quickly became headline news across the country. At their center was a series of attacks by U.S. Marines and sailors on young Mexican American men who dressed in distinctive suits and called themselves pachucos. The media of the day portrayed these youths as miscreants and hoodlums. Even though the outspoken First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, quickly labeled them victims of race riots, the initial portrayal has distorted images ever since. A surprising amount of scholarship has reinforced those images, writes Laura Cummings, proceeding from what she calls “the deviance school of thought.” This innovative study examines the pachuco phenomenon in a new way. Exploring its growth in Tucson, Arizona, the book combines ethnography, history, and sociolinguistics to contextualize the early years of the phenomenon, its diverse cultural roots, and its language development in Tucson. Unlike other studies, it features first-person research with men and women who—despite a wide span of ages—self-identify as pachucos and pachucas. Through these interviews and her archival research, the author finds that pachuco culture has deep roots in Tucson and the Southwest. And she discovers the importance of the pachuco/caló language variety to a shared sense of pachuquismo. Further, she identifies previously neglected pachuco ties to indigenous Indian languages and cultures in Mexico and the United States. Cummings stresses that the great majority of people conversant with the culture and language do not subscribe to the dynamics of contemporary hardcore gangs, but while zoot suits are no longer the rage today, the pachuco language and sensibilities do live on in Mexican American communities across the Southwest and throughout the United States. |
| zoot suit: Zoot Suit Luis Valdez, 1981 |
| zoot suit: Zoot Suits and Second-hand Dresses Angela McRobbie, 1989 Bringing together a range of previously published and specially commissioned articles on the expanding field of popular culture, this book examines how fashion and the body can reflect both resourcefulness and rebellion, the youth culture of the 1980s and music from punk and beyond. |
| zoot suit: The Zoot Suit Riots Kevin Hillstrom, 2013 Surveys the political events, social trends, and racial attitudes that contributed to a week-long outbreak of violence in Los Angeles in 1943 by white servicemen and civilians against young Mexican-American 'zoot suiters.' Includes a narrative overview,biographies, primary sources, chronology, glossary, bibliography, and index--Provided by publisher. |
| zoot suit: The Zoot Suit Riots Charles River Charles River Editors, Charles River, 2017-03-23 *Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the fighting *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents 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. Pushing its way into the important motion picture theaters, the mob ordered the management to turn on the house lights and then ran up and down the aisles dragging Mexicans out of their seats. Streetcars were halted while Mexicans, and some Filipinos and Negroes, were jerked from their seats, pushed into the streets and beaten with a sadistic frenzy. - Carey McWilliams, journalist Even enemies will agree that the United States is a unique nation, in that its culture has been developed almost entirely by immigrants, people who have come to the country from other places and carved their way into society. Sometimes called a melting pot, sometimes a tossed salad, the nation has been shaped by all that is good and bad of the people who live here. Sadly, history has taught that where there is immigration, there will always be conflict. Just as any newly married couple will argue over whose family to spend the holidays with, so those coming from different nations and cultures will clash over which traditions can be integrated into the new society and which ones must be left behind. One might think that after some 400 years of dealing with these issues, the nation would have mastered the subject, but instead the opposite seems true. In the early days of 2016, Americans are engaged in a heated presidential campaign fraught with rhetoric and fear over the role of immigrants in the United States. Candidates frequently speak out against certain cultures, insisting they are dangerous to the American economy or even national security. Because the nation is at war against an enemy defined more by religion and ethnicity than traditional national boundaries, there is a heightened sense of fear and that is adding fuel to the debate and no doubt clouding the judgment of many who are speaking out. They are warning the American people that there had never been a crisis like this in the nation's past, and that swift action must be taken or the country will not survive. The truth is that there has been a crisis much like this and that actions taken in the past, while often swift, was also just as often unjust. Few examples signify that like the Zoot Suit Riots, the national crisis that precipitated them, and the culture of fear and bigotry that nurtured them. If the name of the event sounds silly, its premise was both nearly comical but also deadly serious. It was the product of people of different races, cultures and practices, a story of immigration and clashes between nations on a grand scale and police and young people on an intimate one. The story unfolded in 1942 and 1943 but has been a recurring issue. If indeed, as philosopher George Santayana so famously contended, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, then the Zoot Suit Riots are one aspect of our nation's history that proves it. The Zoot Suit Riots: The History of the Racial Attacks in Los Angeles during World War II looks at the riots in L.A. during the war. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Zoot Suit Riots like never before, in no time at all. |
| zoot suit: Elvis Style Zoey Goto, 2016-07 Celebrates the innovative style-world of Elvis Presley--the man who singlehandedly changed the way that America, and much of the world beyond, dressed. The ... book highlights not only the impact that Elvis made during his lifetime, but also his enduring influence on contemporary design culture--from pop stars and high-end fashion houses to contem |
| zoot suit: Chicano Drama Jorge A. Huerta, 2000-11-16 This book, first published in 2000, was the first since Jorge Huerta's earlier study Chicano Theater: Themes and Forms to explore the diversity and energy of Chicano theatre. Huerta takes as his starting point 1979, the year Luis Valdez's play, Zoot Suit, was produced on Broadway. Huerta looks at plays by and about Chicana and Chicanos, as they explore, through performance, the community and its identity caught between the United States and Mexico. Through informative biographies of each playwright and analyses of their plays, Huerta offers an accessible introduction to this important aspect of American theatre and culture. Overall, Huerta establishes a pattern of theatrical activity that is closely linked with both Western European traditions of realism and an indigenous philosophy seen in contemporary Chicano culture. The book contains photographs from key productions and will be invaluable to students, scholars and general theatregoers. |
| zoot suit: Zoot Suit Luis Valdez, 2004-11-30 A group of Mexican-Americans are sent to San Quentin unjustly for the death of a man at Sleepy Lagoon. Based on the actual case and zoot suit riots of 1940's Los Angeles. |
| zoot suit: The Zoot-Suit Riots Mauricio Mazón, 2010-07-05 “The most incisive analytic study yet produced by a Chicano scholar . . . Mazón looks at the bloody incidents that erupted in Los Angeles during June, 1943.” —California History Los Angeles, the summer of 1943. For ten days in June, Anglo servicemen and civilians clashed in the streets of the city with young Mexican Americans whose fingertip coats and pegged, draped trousers announced their rebellion. At their height, the riots involved several thousand men and women, fighting with fists, rocks, sticks, and sometimes knives. In the end none were killed, few were seriously injured, and property damage was slight and yet, even today, the zoot-suit riots are remembered and hold emotional and symbolic significance for Mexican Americans and Anglos alike. The causes of the rioting were complex, as Mazón demonstrates in this illuminating analysis of their psychodynamics. Based in part on previously undisclosed FBI and military records, this engrossing study goes beyond sensational headlines and biased memories to provide an understanding of the zoot-suit riots in the context of both Mexican American and Anglo social history. “The latest scholarly work to probe the significance of the brawls that erupted in Los Angeles between uniformed servicemen and young Mexican-Americans in June, 1943 . . . Mazon’s contribution is a psychohistory of the riots in which he concludes that they were not as dangerous, or even riotous, as often portrayed.” —Los Angeles Times “In the nascent field of Chicano history psychohistorical studies are not abundant. Thus Mazón makes an immense contribution to the study of the Mexican American.” —American Historical Review |
| zoot suit: Masses, Classes and the Public Sphere Mike Hill, Warren Montag, 2000 This volume poses fundamental questions about the function and relevance of the public sphere, both politically and practically. |
| zoot suit: Assimilation Catherine S. Ramírez, 2020-10-27 For over a hundred years, the story of assimilation has animated the nation-building project of the United States. And still today, the dream or demand of a cultural melting pot circulates through academia, policy institutions, and mainstream media outlets. Noting society’s many exclusions and erasures, scholars in the second half of the twentieth century persuasively argued that only some social groups assimilate. Others, they pointed out, are subject to racialization. In this bold, discipline-traversing cultural history, Catherine Ramírez develops an entirely different account of assimilation. Weaving together the legacies of US settler colonialism, slavery, and border control, Ramírez challenges the assumption that racialization and assimilation are separate and incompatible processes. In fascinating chapters with subjects that range from nineteenth century boarding schools to the contemporary artwork of undocumented immigrants, this book decouples immigration and assimilation and probes the gap between assimilation and citizenship. It shows that assimilation is not just a process of absorption and becoming more alike. Rather, assimilation is a process of racialization and subordination and of power and inequality. |
| zoot suit: Zoot Suit Riots Barbara J. Turner, 2015-09-13 |
| zoot suit: The Sleepy Lagoon Case Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee, 1944 |
| zoot suit: The Fashion Design Reference & Specification Book Jay Calderin, Laura Volpintesta, 2013-07-01 An essential primer for students and first-stop reference for professionals, The Fashion Design Reference & Specification Booktakes the fashion designer through the entire design process, from conceiving a garment to marketing it. This valuable handbook contains the information and ideas essential to planning and executing fashion projects of every scale and distills them in an easy-to-use format that is compact enough to slip into a tote. Linking six central phases in the cycle of fashion—research, editing, design, construction, connection, and evolution—The Fashion Design Reference & Specification Book helps designers develop effective strategies for building a cohesive collection and communicating their vision. The Reference & Specification Book series from Rockport Publishers offers students and practicing professionals in a range of creative industries must-have information in their area of specialty in an up-to-date, concise handbook. |
| zoot suit: The Marvelous Ones Randol Contreras, 2024-04-02 An intimate portrait of LA gang members turning to drugs, nostalgia, and religion as they age and fight to stay relevant in a new era. Once celebrated in the gang world as rebels who defied the established prison order, veterano Maravilla gang members now grapple with the consequences of leading violent and drug-ridden lives. At once thrilling and tender, The Marvelous Ones sheds light on how these aging gang members struggle to stay meaningful in the face of addiction, violent trauma, and a rapidly changing East Los Angeles. Randol Contreras spent close to a decade studying the legendary Maravilla gangs of East LA, who made waves in the 1990s for their rebellion against the most powerful prison gang in the United States: the Mexican Mafia, or La Eme. These men granted Contreras unique access to their experiences, revealing how family members shun them, how jail and prison worsen them, how the church and drug treatment redeem them, and how their brightest moments lie in their pasts as legends of the California gang world. The Marvelous Ones gives human faces to the suffering and resilience of some of the most marginalized members of our society. |
| zoot suit: Zoot Suit Riots Roger Bruns, 2014-02-28 The Zoot Suit Riots in 1943 and the infamous Sleepy Lagoon murder trial of the preceding year represent a turning point in the cultural identity and historical experience of Mexican Americans in the United States. This engaging study of these regrettable events provides context for understanding the continuing battles in the 21st century over immigration policy and race relations. Although the zoot suit had earlier been a black youth fashion trend identified with jazz culture, by the 1940s, the zoot suit was adopted by Mexican American teenagers in wartime Los Angeles, who wore it as their unofficial uniform as an act of rebellion and to establish their cultural identity. For a week in June of 1943, the Zoot Suit Riots, instigated by Anglo-American servicemen and condoned by the Los Angeles police, terrorized the Mexican American community. The events were an ugly testament to the climate of racial tension and resentment in Los Angeles—and after similar riots began across the nation, it became apparent how endemic the problem was. This book traces these important historic events and their subsequent cultural and political influences on the Mexican American experience, especially the activist and reform efforts designed to prevent similar future injustices. General readers will gain an understanding of the challenges facing the Mexican American community in wartime Los Angeles, grasp the racial and cultural resistance of the larger Anglo-American society of the time, and see how the blatant injustices of the Sleepy Lagoon trial and the Zoot Suit Riots served to galvanize Latinos and others to fight back. Those conducting in-depth research will appreciate having access to original materials sourced from Federal and state archives as well as newspapers and other repositories of information provided in the book. |
| zoot suit: Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers Movement Roger Bruns, 2011-05-26 This book offers an illuminating story of how social and political change can sometimes result from the vision, leadership, and commitment of a few dedicated individuals determined not to fail. Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers Movement chronicles the drive for a union of one of American society's most exploited groups. It is a story of courage and determination, set against the backdrop of the 1960s, a time of assassinations, war protests, civil rights battles, and reform efforts for poor and minority citizens. American farm workers were men and women on labor's last rung, living in desperate and inhumane conditions, poisoned by pesticides, and making a pittance for back-breaking work. The book shows how these migrant workers found a champion in Chavez and the United Farm Workers Union. With the help of quotes from documentary material only recently made available, it tells the story of the boycotts, marches, and strikes—including hunger strikes—used to force concessions for better conditions and pay. It also shows how the farm workers movement helped set the stage for growing Latino cultural awareness and political power. |
| zoot suit: Zoot-Suit Murders Thomas Sanchez, 2009-07-01 Like his lavishly praised novels Rabbit Boss and Mile Zero, Thomas Sanchez's Zoot-Suit Murders combines a tautly arched narrative with fiercely visual prose and a starkly revisionist view of the American melting pot. |
| zoot suit: The Sleepy Lagoon Murder Case Mark A. Weitz, 2010-10-29 What began as a neighborhood party during the summer of 1942 led to the largest mass murder trial in California's history. After young Jose Diaz was found murdered near Los Angeles' Sleepy Lagoon reservoir, 600 Mexican Americans were rounded up by the police, 24 were indicted, and 17 were convicted. But thanks to the efforts of crusading lawyers, Hollywood celebrities, and Mexican Americans throughout the nation, all 17 convictions were thrown out in an appellate decision that cited lack of evidence, coerced testimony, deprivation of the right to counsel, and judicial misconduct. Mark Weitz chronicles the Sleepy Lagoon case (People v. Zammora) from the streets of the L.A.'s Mexican-American neighborhoods to the criminal courts, through the appeals process, and to the ultimate release of the convicted. In the process, Weitz opens a window on the uneasy world of Hispanic-Anglo relations, which, exacerbated by an influx of Mexican immigrants, had simmered beneath the surface in California for a century and reached the boiling point by 1942. By demonstrating how an environment of hostility and fear had fostered a breakdown in the legal protections that should have been afforded to the Sleepy Lagoon defendants, Weitz also illuminates a vital episode in the evolution of defendants' rights-including the right to counsel and a fair and impartial trial. As the case unfolded, the prosecution and local media drew ominous comparisons between the supposed dangers posed by the Mexican-American defendants and the threat allegedly posed by thousands of Japanese Americans, whose sympathies had been called into question after Pearl Harbor. Weitz shows how Zammora demonstrates what it is like to literally be tried in the court of public opinion where the opinion has been shaped before the trial even begins. Now, as Americans once again feel threatened by outsiders-whether Islamic jihadists or illegal immigrants—Zammora provides a mirror showing us how we acted then compared to how we respond now. While much of what occurred in 1942 L.A. was unique to its time and place, Weitz's compelling narrative shows that many of the social, political, and culture issues that dominated America then are still with us today. |
| zoot suit: The Jazz And Blues Lover's Guide To The U.s. Christiane Bird, 1991-07-21 |
| zoot suit: Hurricane Dancers Margarita Engle, 2015-08-04 Quebrado has been traded from pirate ship to ship in the Caribbean Sea for as long as he can remember. The sailors he toils under call him el quebrado-half islander, half outsider, a broken one. Now the pirate captain Bernardino de Talavera uses Quebrado as a translator to help navigate the worlds and words between his mother's Taíno Indian language and his father's Spanish. But when a hurricane sinks the ship and most of its crew, it is Quebrado who escapes to safety. He learns how to live on land again, among people who treat him well. And it is he who must decide the fate of his former captors. Latino interest. |
| zoot suit: New York Magazine , 1979-04-09 New York magazine was born in 1968 after a run as an insert of the New York Herald Tribune and quickly made a place for itself as the trusted resource for readers across the country. With award-winning writing and photography covering everything from politics and food to theater and fashion, the magazine's consistent mission has been to reflect back to its audience the energy and excitement of the city itself, while celebrating New York as both a place and an idea. |
| zoot suit: Zoot Suit , 2000 |
| zoot suit: A Cycle of Outrage James Gilbert, 1988-10-13 The youth culture is on everyone's lips today, as pressures build to ban controversial song lyrics, reintroduce school prayer, and prohibit teenagers' access to contraceptives. It's not the first time Americans have been outraged over the seuction of the innocent.. When James Dean and Marlon Brando donned their motorcycle jackets and adopted alienated poses in Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden, and The Wild One, in the 1950's, so did countless numbers of American teenagers. Or so it seemed to their parents. American teenagers were looking and acting like juvenile delinquents. By mid-decade, the nation had reached a pitch of near obsession with the harmful effects of film, radio, comic books, and television on American youth. Experts across the land denounced mass culture as depriving young people of their innocence and weakening their parents' hold on them. By the end of the decade, the obsession had ended, although the actual numbers of juvenile delinquents had apparently risen. A Cycle of Outrage explores the 1950's debate over the media and juvenile delinquency among parents, professionals, and the creators of mass culture themselves. In this groundbreaking study, James Gilbert sees the attempt to blame the media as part of a larger reaction of discomfort echoed in recent debates over censorship. The book examines how the central phenomena of the 1950's--the development of youth culture and the rise of a mass media society--became intertwined and confused and argues that young people ceased to be a threat as they were recognized to be a market. |
| zoot suit: The Bronze Screen Rosa Linda Fregoso, 1993 Explores Chicana and Chicano popular culture through contemporary representations in both Hollywood commercial and independent cinema. Rosa Linda Fregoso's The Bronze Screen opens the way for international debate on the new critical field of Chicano/a cinema. Fregoso provides an incisive articulation of the ways in which narrative codes in film can telescope complex versions of Mexican and American culture and history. The often violent impact of 'first' (U.S.) and 'third' (Mexico) world cultures and geographies is channeled through the very term Chicano/a as well as its cinematic representation. Fregoso's masterful critique brings out with great clarity the irony, paradox, and contradictions of such historical collisions. --Norma Alarcón, University of California, Berkeley |
Zoot suit - Wikipedia
A zoot suit (occasionally spelled zuit suit[1]) is a men's suit with high-waisted, wide-legged, tight-cuffed, pegged trousers, and a long coat with wide lapels and wide padded shoulders. It is …
Zoot Suit Riots: Causes, Facts & Photos - HISTORY
Sep 27, 2017 · The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of violent clashes during which mobs of U.S. servicemen, off-duty police officers and civilians brawled with young Latinos and other …
A Brief History of the Zoot Suit - Smithsonian Magazine
Mar 23, 2016 · With its super-sized shoulder pads, sprawling lapels and peg leg pants, the zoot suit grew out of the “drape” suits popular in Harlem dance halls in the mid-1930s. The flowing …
Zoot Suit Riots | Summary, Causes, Significance, & Facts - Britannica
May 27, 2025 · Zoot Suit Riots, a series of conflicts that occurred in June 1943 in Los Angeles between U.S. servicemen and Mexican American youths, the latter of whom wore outfits called …
The Zoot Suit Riots and Wartime Los Angeles
Why was the zoot suit—high-waisted pants with baggy, pegged legs and a long coat with wide lapels—at the center of a wave of violence that gripped Los Angeles for five days in 1943? …
Zoot suit: How the first truly American suit shaped fashion - Los ...
Jun 13, 2023 · The zoot suit, colloquially known in its era as “drapes,” was, by most accounts, made prominent by African Americans in Harlem and then quickly embraced by working-class …
Common Threads: The Zoot Suit — An Evolution of a Radical Style
May 12, 2025 · Not only in the U.S., but also in occupied France, the zoot suit, worn by middle-class Parisian youth known as “zazous,” served as a symbol of resistance against the Nazi …
How Did the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943 Begin in Los Angeles? Full …
May 31, 2025 · The Zoot Suit Riots began when tensions between White servicemen and Mexican-American youth escalated into violence, driven by racism, media bias, and cultural …
Unpacking the Zoot Suit: My Journey Through Culture, …
Apr 17, 2025 · The Zoot Suit is more than just a bold fashion choice; it embodies a powerful narrative of identity and resistance. With its oversized jackets and high-waisted trousers, this …
How the Zoot Suit Got So Much Swag | American Experience | PBS
Mar 2, 2022 · The zoot suit style fell out of favor after WWII. But its exaggerated silhouette exemplifies how exclusive barriers to fashion are broken down through the creative ingenuity …
Zoot suit - Wikipedia
A zoot suit (occasionally spelled zuit suit[1]) is a men's suit with high-waisted, wide-legged, tight-cuffed, pegged trousers, and a long coat with wide lapels and wide padded shoulders. It is …
Zoot Suit Riots: Causes, Facts & Photos - HISTORY
Sep 27, 2017 · The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of violent clashes during which mobs of U.S. servicemen, off-duty police officers and civilians brawled with young Latinos and other …
A Brief History of the Zoot Suit - Smithsonian Magazine
Mar 23, 2016 · With its super-sized shoulder pads, sprawling lapels and peg leg pants, the zoot suit grew out of the “drape” suits popular in Harlem dance halls in the mid-1930s. The flowing …
Zoot Suit Riots | Summary, Causes, Significance, & Facts - Britannica
May 27, 2025 · Zoot Suit Riots, a series of conflicts that occurred in June 1943 in Los Angeles between U.S. servicemen and Mexican American youths, the latter of whom wore outfits called …
The Zoot Suit Riots and Wartime Los Angeles
Why was the zoot suit—high-waisted pants with baggy, pegged legs and a long coat with wide lapels—at the center of a wave of violence that gripped Los Angeles for five days in 1943? …
Zoot suit: How the first truly American suit shaped fashion - Los ...
Jun 13, 2023 · The zoot suit, colloquially known in its era as “drapes,” was, by most accounts, made prominent by African Americans in Harlem and then quickly embraced by working-class …
Common Threads: The Zoot Suit — An Evolution of a Radical Style
May 12, 2025 · Not only in the U.S., but also in occupied France, the zoot suit, worn by middle-class Parisian youth known as “zazous,” served as a symbol of resistance against the Nazi …
How Did the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943 Begin in Los Angeles? Full …
May 31, 2025 · The Zoot Suit Riots began when tensions between White servicemen and Mexican-American youth escalated into violence, driven by racism, media bias, and cultural …
Unpacking the Zoot Suit: My Journey Through Culture, …
Apr 17, 2025 · The Zoot Suit is more than just a bold fashion choice; it embodies a powerful narrative of identity and resistance. With its oversized jackets and high-waisted trousers, this …
How the Zoot Suit Got So Much Swag | American Experience | PBS
Mar 2, 2022 · The zoot suit style fell out of favor after WWII. But its exaggerated silhouette exemplifies how exclusive barriers to fashion are broken down through the creative ingenuity …
