Courtesy of the Library of Congress. On Monday, June 7, , California-based journalist Carey McWilliams could only stand with the crowd gathered on Broadway in Los Angeles and watch the chaos unfold before his eyes. Why was the zoot suitβhigh-waisted pants with baggy, pegged legs and a long coat with wide lapelsβat the center of a wave of violence that gripped Los Angeles for five days in ?
Popular among young Mexican American and Filipino American men in California during the early war years, the flamboyant zoot suit was more than a fashion statement. The violence that beset Los Angeles was the product of rising racial tensions brought on by a variety of wartime factors across the United States in Before it became a target for racial violence, the zoot suit was a new fashion that appealed to Black men in Harlem and was made popular by performers like Cab Calloway and Lionel Hampton.
Although zoot suits certainly earned the ire of those serious about rationing, they would soon become affiliated with crime and delinquency. Mexican emigrants populated Los Angeles during the early 20th century seeking job opportunities in the burgeoning urban area, while white migrantsβmany from the South and Midwestβalso came to the West Coast at the height of the Great Depression.
While Mexican Americans built a strong community in Los Angeles in the prewar years, they were consistently met with discrimination, including a program that forcibly removed even Mexican American citizens from California and deported them to Mexico in As Los Angeles grew, so did racial and ethnic tensions.
Young Mexican American men and women formed gangs for territorial control and protection including the 38th Street Gang. City officials and other residents of Los Angeles suspected that the activities of the 38th Street Gang were representative of all Mexican Americans. Officers arrested 24 members of the 38th Street Gang, 17 of whom were found guilty in January on charges of manslaughter and assault despite dubious evidence.
