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A Podcast on Zoot Suits? Yes · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
0:08
Speaker 1: From House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuckers Bryant.
0:20
Speaker 1: And since two of us are sitting together again and
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Speaker 1: it's not lunchtime, um leg wrestling time, that's true. This
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Speaker 1: means it's a stuff you should know? Right? Yeah, what's
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Speaker 1: up to? How are you, Josh? I'm good. We just
0:35
Speaker 1: got something in today that I want to give a
0:38
Speaker 1: shout out of thanks for to our friend Martin van Nostri.
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Speaker 1: Did that come in today today? Okay? He kept emailing
0:45
Speaker 1: us pestering me has it not come yet? Like I like,
0:48
Speaker 1: I'm the postmaster general or something like that. But anyway,
0:52
Speaker 1: he sent us each a T shirt and the new
0:54
Speaker 1: CD of his band, The Bangalore's in Vitro Meat is
0:58
Speaker 1: the name of the album, and it's pretty awesome. I
1:03
Speaker 1: haven't listened to it yet. I just got it. Can't wait.
1:04
Speaker 1: He sent us some some songs off of it already,
1:07
Speaker 1: some previous cuts. Yeah. He was the first person to
1:11
Speaker 1: record the Stuff you Should Know song like in two
1:14
Speaker 1: thousand eight, you remember, well, yeah, and I think he
1:17
Speaker 1: has a toxoplasmosis song on the new one, right he does. Yeah,
1:20
Speaker 1: we've inspired a lot. I think he released a whole
1:22
Speaker 1: album of stuff you should know songs really yeah, and
1:26
Speaker 1: like quick little punk songs to like a minute and
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Speaker 1: a half. So there's like fifty of them. But anyway,
1:30
Speaker 1: thanks a lot to Van Nostrin. We won't say his
1:33
Speaker 1: real name, but we know it. We do, finally, we
1:35
Speaker 1: didn't for a long time. But anyway, if you feel
1:37
Speaker 1: like checking that out, it's um the Bangalore's like the
1:40
Speaker 1: city in India, and the album is in vitro meat
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Speaker 1: and we'll probably get in trouble for endorsing this, so Chuck,
1:49
Speaker 1: you want to get to it. Yes? Have you ever
1:51
Speaker 1: heard of some dumb laws? Yeah? Man, there are some
1:56
Speaker 1: dumb laws in this great land of ours. For example,
1:58
Speaker 1: if I may, I've prepared to a shortlist. In Alabama,
2:03
Speaker 1: bear wrestling matches are prohibited. It's illegal to sell peanuts
2:08
Speaker 1: in Lee County after sundown on Wednesday. It would be
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Speaker 1: Lee County, Alabama. Did you give a reason for that one? No,
2:15
Speaker 1: there are some This is from I think dumb laws
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Speaker 1: Dot com and um. They have like just international laws,
2:22
Speaker 1: state laws, local laws, and then under some of them
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Speaker 1: they have like full text of the law or why
2:27
Speaker 1: this law exists. It's pretty comprehensive site. UM. In Hawaii,
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Speaker 1: coins are not allowed to be placed in one's ears
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Speaker 1: for spending only. Um. All residents may be fined as
2:38
Speaker 1: a result of not owning a boat. You're going to
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Speaker 1: Hawaii tomorrow right or a couple of days. I dare
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Speaker 1: you to put a coin in your ear and walk
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Speaker 1: around and be like, I don't own a boat. I
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Speaker 1: don't own a boat. Chumps um back in our fair
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Speaker 1: state of Georgia, to legally use profanity in front of
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Speaker 1: a dead body which lies in a funeral home or
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Speaker 1: in a corner's all us that's respectful law, okay Um.
3:03
Speaker 1: In Ackworth, which is close to Keennessaw where I grew up,
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Speaker 1: where you had to own a gun, I didn't know this.
3:10
Speaker 1: In Ackworth, all citizens must own a rake. Really yeah,
3:14
Speaker 1: not a blower? A rake? I think a blower. That's
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Speaker 1: kind of like asking a lot of some some of
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Speaker 1: the lower income classes, you know. UM. In Athens on Mondays,
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Speaker 1: it's illegal for one to whistle very loudly after eleven pm.
3:29
Speaker 1: What but on Monday's And then California, of course, is
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Speaker 1: going to have some zany laws. They have tons and
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Speaker 1: tons of wacky dumb laws. Animals are banned from mating
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Speaker 1: publicly within fift feet of a tavern, school or place
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Speaker 1: of worship. Women may not drive in a housecoat in Fresno.
3:51
Speaker 1: Getting drunk in a playground is against the law. That
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Speaker 1: is sound. I don't agree with that one. That's sensible. Uh.
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Speaker 1: And then in Los Angeles it's illegal to wear a
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Speaker 1: zoot suit. Yeah still still so I bring that up,
4:07
Speaker 1: and I knew Chuck with like that last time, because
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Speaker 1: I'm sure there's stories behind almost all of those zany laws,
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Speaker 1: or at least there's some reasoning. People don't just make
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Speaker 1: up crazy laws like bear wrestlings. I'm sure it got
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Speaker 1: out of hand once and now they're just like, that's it.
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Speaker 1: It's illegal. So Chuck and I actually know the reason
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Speaker 1: why zoot suits are illegal in Los Angeles County, California,
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Speaker 1: and we're going to tell you about it today. It's
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Speaker 1: pretty neat. This little article started off as a bit
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Speaker 1: of a a lark. I don't know, but we thought
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Speaker 1: zoot suits. Those are interesting and cool, but it's more
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Speaker 1: than a suit, as it turns out, it really is.
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Speaker 1: It was at least you should probably mention, like, what
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Speaker 1: is a zoot suit, Chuck. Everybody's seen them before. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: back in the nineteen thirties. Uh, they were very much
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Speaker 1: in fashion, especially in UH in uh Latino communities, in
4:56
Speaker 1: African American communities coast to coast. Though it seems like uh,
5:01
Speaker 1: Caesar Chavez, Malcolm X, Cab calloway, big band leaders, the
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Speaker 1: jazz scene in New York all very much associated with
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Speaker 1: zoot suit. Tomcat from Tom and Jerry, Yeah, who was
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Speaker 1: going after a girl and she said she was a
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Speaker 1: square and was corny and he goes out and gets
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Speaker 1: some a zoot suit and becomes a cool cat. Cool cat.
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Speaker 1: So you'll know a zoot suit. They were originally worn
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Speaker 1: made of wool and then later rayon, but you'll know
5:27
Speaker 1: it because they're very distinct. They have very broad, padded shoulders,
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Speaker 1: very long waisted coats. Uh. Suit pants were worn really
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Speaker 1: really high, like up over the belly and uh, we're
5:40
Speaker 1: very tight at the top, then ballooned out like mc
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Speaker 1: hammer style and then tapered back down again at the
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Speaker 1: ankle or we're pegged. Oh of course, yeah, that's not
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Speaker 1: you achieved that look. And um, the jackets exaggerated contours
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Speaker 1: and colors. A lot of times they would wear the
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Speaker 1: big pocket chain that went down to their knee and
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Speaker 1: the hat with a feather and it was pointy shoes. Sure,
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Speaker 1: um so they If it sounds a lot like, um, pimps,
6:10
Speaker 1: seventies pimps, where to you not too far off? I
6:13
Speaker 1: guess I think you could make an argument that it
6:15
Speaker 1: was a predecessor of that. And in fact, you mentioned
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Speaker 1: Malcolm X favorite Zoot suits. I didn't realize this today,
6:20
Speaker 1: but in researching zoo suits, Malcolm X used to be
6:23
Speaker 1: called Detroit Red, who was in fact a pimp. Yeah,
6:27
Speaker 1: and he apparently got his education in Harlem and became
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Speaker 1: Malcolm X. Did you not see the movie? Yeah, it
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Speaker 1: was good. From what I remember from the awesome Spike
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Speaker 1: Lee movie was that he was into the zoot scene
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Speaker 1: earlier and then once he you know, became Malcolm X
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Speaker 1: and uh not, what was his original name, Shabaz? Yes,
6:49
Speaker 1: I believe so, Malcolm Shabaz. So once he became Malcolm
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Speaker 1: X and got serious about the civil rights, he ditched
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Speaker 1: the zoot suit and stuff, and was a little more
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Speaker 1: traditionally garbed right. Um another way, So the zoot suit
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Speaker 1: you you just nailed it on the head. You said,
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Speaker 1: the zoos suit scene, it was very much part of
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Speaker 1: a scene, part of the Harlem renaissance. Um. It was
7:09
Speaker 1: part of the pacho scene out in Los Angeles, which
7:11
Speaker 1: we'll talk about, Pacho, pachuco, pachuko. I used, I like
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Speaker 1: slang on top of slang, so I call it pacho. Um.
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Speaker 1: And so it was kind of the uniform of a
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Speaker 1: certain kind of scene, apparently, the upscale black nightclubs of Harlem.
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Speaker 1: Like if if you saw an African American man walking
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Speaker 1: around wearing a zoot suit, you're like, that guy is
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Speaker 1: a high roller and he knows how to get into
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Speaker 1: the good clubs. I thought you were gonna bust out
7:41
Speaker 1: some cab callaway slang. Well, you mentioned cab Callaway was
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Speaker 1: one of the the people who love zoos suits. And
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Speaker 1: he wrote a dictionary of slang, of jive slang. Thank you.
7:54
Speaker 1: I could not be square if I tried, um, And
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Speaker 1: one of the one of the words that he put
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Speaker 1: down was zoo, which he says means exaggerated. It turns
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Speaker 1: out that there's a whole lot of mystery surrounding the
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Speaker 1: origins of zoot suit. But if I may, in Cab
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Speaker 1: Callaway's jive slang, describe what his zoots suit looks like,
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Speaker 1: you did a great job in normal, square, corny terms.
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Speaker 1: But if you want to talk like a hepcat from
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Speaker 1: the jive jump zoot suit era, you would describe it
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Speaker 1: as a killer dealer coat with a drape shape, real
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Speaker 1: pleats and shoulders padded like a lunatic cell. Well, it's
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Speaker 1: interesting that he said drape because originally they were known
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Speaker 1: as drape suits and even advertised as extreme quote extreme
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Speaker 1: drapes in newspapers. Yeah, pretty cool. Yeah, so the zoos
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Speaker 1: is hanging out there. It's kind of weird. Ralph Ellison
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Speaker 1: wrote about Um wrote about it in As an Invisible Man.
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Speaker 1: His novel The Narrator encounters Um three young and extravagantly
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Speaker 1: dressed blacks in their zoot suits, and he says that
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Speaker 1: they were the stewards of something uncomfortable. So he's saying, like,
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Speaker 1: there's just it's almost like it was. It's the same
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Speaker 1: as if you're if you saw a bunch of rave
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Speaker 1: kids wearing like the stupid pants, yes in the nineties
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Speaker 1: or whatever you know, or or hip hop kids today.
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Speaker 1: It was this. It was the same thing, except this
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Speaker 1: was much more upscale than that. But it was basically,
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Speaker 1: people have trouble walking in but they're still gotta have
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Speaker 1: that look, you know, because that's what the cool kids
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Speaker 1: do exactly. So this was you could argue, the original
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Speaker 1: American version of counter culture dress, and it grew out
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Speaker 1: of Harlem and was later adopted by um Mexican Americans
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Speaker 1: or Latino Americans in Los Angeles. Yeah, what's this one
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Speaker 1: bit that it could have originated in Gainesville, Georgia? How
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Speaker 1: about that? So, yeah, there's a lot of there's some
9:56
Speaker 1: origin stories, right and yeah, and they're none of them
9:59
Speaker 1: are the same, right and and they're all very different. No,
10:01
Speaker 1: but I do like that when you're talking about from Gainesville,
10:03
Speaker 1: what isn't Yeah, they a man, a bus driver, I'm sorry,
10:08
Speaker 1: bust worker named Clyde Duncan from New York um came
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Speaker 1: back to New York with one and said he bought
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Speaker 1: it in Gainesville, Georgia and allegedly, uh, he had been
10:17
Speaker 1: inspired by Gone with the Wind and wanted to look
10:20
Speaker 1: like rhet Butler and so got a Taylor in Gainesville
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Speaker 1: to make him this thing. I'd like to go with
10:25
Speaker 1: that story. And well, the New York Times put that
10:27
Speaker 1: story forth and they said it basically on it quickically
10:29
Speaker 1: in and um that was the story for many many
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Speaker 1: years until historians actually started to put real effort and
10:37
Speaker 1: thought it into the zoot suits, um, and they found
10:40
Speaker 1: that there it's possibly true, but most likely, uh, it
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Speaker 1: came out of either guys like Cab Callaway wearing them
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Speaker 1: or guys like Cab Callaway copying people in the jazz scene.
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Speaker 1: And then you know, it basically going forth like that.
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Speaker 1: And ultimately it seems that it did come out of
11:01
Speaker 1: this era, whether it was uh this Clyde Duncan fella
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Speaker 1: who had the idea originally or whatever, you can basically
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Speaker 1: say the Harlem Renaissance zoos suits came out of that.
11:12
Speaker 1: And you know, I knew that. I did not know
11:15
Speaker 1: of its association within the Latino and largely Mexican community. No,
11:20
Speaker 1: but that's where like really started to it switched when
11:24
Speaker 1: it hit the Latino American community. Before it was just
11:27
Speaker 1: like I'm wealthy, I can get into good clubs. I'm
11:30
Speaker 1: part of this club scene in Harlem. Um, when it
11:34
Speaker 1: hit Los Angeles and was taken up by the Pacos, right,
11:40
Speaker 1: um square, Uh, it changed, it transformed, it turned into
11:44
Speaker 1: something political and became ultimately a sign of defiance. Yeah.
11:49
Speaker 1: In the World War Two, you know, everyone knows that
11:52
Speaker 1: there was there was rationing going on everything from food
11:54
Speaker 1: to metals and ultimately wool and cloth. So where in
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Speaker 1: a zoot suit which required an abundance of cloth was
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Speaker 1: deemed not patriotic because you're basically flaunting, Hey, I don't
12:10
Speaker 1: care about the war effort. I'm gonna wear my zoot suit.
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Speaker 1: That's more important to me, right exactly. So, um. In
12:15
Speaker 1: in the forties, the war production board basically said we
12:18
Speaker 1: need to cut back all fabric used in the States
12:20
Speaker 1: by and to help you, here is the new American suit.
12:26
Speaker 1: It's streamline, it uses less fabric. As long as you're
12:29
Speaker 1: making stuff, according to these, um, these sketches, you're patriotic,
12:34
Speaker 1: you're American, You're within the law. Right. Uncle Sam wanted
12:37
Speaker 1: to squear tight clothes pretty much. And if you think
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Speaker 1: about if you look at the suits in the fifties
12:42
Speaker 1: and sixties and after the forties, Um, the American the
12:47
Speaker 1: classic American suit is narrow, narrow cut, the cuffs are high. Yeah. Um,
12:52
Speaker 1: so I wonder if that came out. I'm sure, but
12:55
Speaker 1: you can take what they were saying a different way,
12:58
Speaker 1: and that Uncle Sam's telling you would dressed like this
13:01
Speaker 1: and everybody dressed like that. So zoot suits immediately became,
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Speaker 1: um a symbol of defiance. Anybody who wore him was saying,
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Speaker 1: you know, up yours, Uncle Sam. Uh. And it was
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Speaker 1: ultimately illegal to manufacture or advertise as zoot suit or
13:18
Speaker 1: anything that fell outside of those American suits. So incredibly,
13:23
Speaker 1: bootleg and underground tailors grew up to make and sell
13:28
Speaker 1: zoot suits, and at the same time, especially in Los Angeles,
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Speaker 1: it had an association with UH gang activity, criminal activity,
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Speaker 1: and thuggery, largely because of newspapers that would call them,
13:44
Speaker 1: you know, zoot suitors committing crimes. They would you know,
13:47
Speaker 1: label people in its particular clothing as being criminals. Essentially. Yeah. Well,
13:52
Speaker 1: racism is definitely nothing new in this country, and it
13:55
Speaker 1: was hot and heavy in the late thirties early forties
13:58
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles among um it was mainly targeted I
14:03
Speaker 1: think toward Latino Americans. But it's not like African Americans
14:07
Speaker 1: didn't get the brunt of it as well, but basically
14:10
Speaker 1: it was white people in California were like, hey, there's
14:12
Speaker 1: a lot of you these days, so you're making us
14:15
Speaker 1: a little nervous, and um, you wearing the zoos suit
14:19
Speaker 1: is easy to target. It just so happened that the
14:23
Speaker 1: group that they were targeting was actually kind of homogeneous
14:27
Speaker 1: people who wore zoos suits, kind of wore them in defiance,
14:31
Speaker 1: but also identified themselves with them. Right, the pachos. It
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Speaker 1: was a statement of independence, not necessarily thumbing your nose
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Speaker 1: at the United States, but just hey, I'm independent, I'm Latino,
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Speaker 1: I'm living in Los Angeles nineties and this is our look.
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Speaker 1: So the pachos, Yeah, the pachucos, the pachos. I'm seeing
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Speaker 1: pachos right here. Octavio pa said, pachoss Yeah, okay, Um,
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Speaker 1: So the pachos were it's They weren't an import from Mexico.
15:01
Speaker 1: They were a real American hybrid. They were second generation
15:05
Speaker 1: um Latino American kids who, ironically, because of the war effort,
15:11
Speaker 1: were latch key kids. Their parents were off working the
15:14
Speaker 1: night shift um for war production, and they were basically
15:17
Speaker 1: left to them. Their own devices. They called themselves twenty
15:20
Speaker 1: four hour orphans, the first latch key kids, and um,
15:24
Speaker 1: they were also arguably the first rebels, and out of
15:28
Speaker 1: their emergence in America, UM came the whole concept of
15:34
Speaker 1: juvenile delinquency. Yeah, I love that one quote from Octavio
15:37
Speaker 1: pass And I read that he said the zoot suit
15:40
Speaker 1: was a symbol of love and joy or horror and loathing,
15:43
Speaker 1: an embodiment of liberty, of disorder, of the forbidden. So
15:47
Speaker 1: it was this single fashion item was at the same
15:54
Speaker 1: time asserting your independence and individuality as well as what
15:58
Speaker 1: white folk saw as thumb in their nose, the white
16:02
Speaker 1: man basically, Um, and I guess that's exactly what they
16:06
Speaker 1: were doing, because, as you said, like, they weren't necessarily
16:10
Speaker 1: wearing the zoos suit as a statement, and they weren't
16:13
Speaker 1: anti war protesters, but it was more like, you know what,
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Speaker 1: I'm sick of you racist white people, and I'm I'm
16:19
Speaker 1: not going to hide my identity. I'm not going to
16:21
Speaker 1: try to blend in. I'm not going to go back
16:24
Speaker 1: to my traditional roots from Mexico because I wasn't born here.
16:28
Speaker 1: But I'm not gonna, you know, join the service and
16:32
Speaker 1: wearing American suit like like, so this is this was
16:35
Speaker 1: the compromise, and it kicked white people off like crazy,
16:42
Speaker 1: especially in Los Angeles. Yeah. Well, at the time, in
16:45
Speaker 1: southern California, there was an enormous presence of UM service
16:50
Speaker 1: men who were waiting to ship out to the Pacific
16:53
Speaker 1: Theater from California. Yeah, and they were, you know, rubbing
16:56
Speaker 1: elbows with these guys that a lot of people thought
16:59
Speaker 1: were members and zoot suitors, and they rubbed elbows not
17:04
Speaker 1: in a very good way either, which you know, ultimately
17:08
Speaker 1: led to the zoot suit riots. But there were some
17:10
Speaker 1: pretty striking events that led up to that summer. So
17:15
Speaker 1: one of the things you said you mentioned was that
17:17
Speaker 1: they were getting negative press, right, so people in zoot
17:20
Speaker 1: suits were associated with things like um, uh, let me
17:24
Speaker 1: see quote, um, the record already reveals killing stabbings in
17:29
Speaker 1: cases of innocent women having been molested by zoot suit gangsters.
17:33
Speaker 1: That's from the Los Angeles Examiner. And uh. The article
17:37
Speaker 1: was titled police must clean up l a hoodlumism, which
17:40
Speaker 1: is not a word, right, But so so there's this
17:44
Speaker 1: joint effort of UM just general racism among whites in
17:48
Speaker 1: the in the general public um and servicemen waiting to
17:52
Speaker 1: be deployed specifically, and the Los Angeles media kind of
17:56
Speaker 1: fanning the flames, that's right, and then this Sleepy Lagoon
18:00
Speaker 1: murder happened. The Sleepy Lagoon case. Sleepy Lagoon, Josh was
18:04
Speaker 1: a reservoir by the l A River. It's not there
18:08
Speaker 1: anymore in that pastag not at all, like a plastics
18:10
Speaker 1: plant there now there's no reservoir. Yes, so don't go
18:14
Speaker 1: looking for it, even though they said it's uh, roughly
18:17
Speaker 1: it was atlass And Boulevard in Maywood. I know where
18:21
Speaker 1: that is actually. I think it's on the way to
18:23
Speaker 1: the airport. Uh so the Sleepy Lagoon case. UM. At
18:27
Speaker 1: the time, Mexican Americans were denied access to public pools
18:30
Speaker 1: and swimming holes and stuff like that, so they used
18:33
Speaker 1: Sleepy Lagoon as a big hang out where they would
18:37
Speaker 1: go and listen to music and swim and have a
18:38
Speaker 1: good time. Um. In August to uh, the body of
18:46
Speaker 1: Jose Diaz was found at this reservoir. And what I
18:49
Speaker 1: gathered there was a big party, like a big house party,
18:53
Speaker 1: where a fight broke out and one guy ended up
18:56
Speaker 1: getting killed, and as a result, they rounded up read
19:00
Speaker 1: four hundred Mexican American youths had a corrupt trial where
19:05
Speaker 1: they basically denied the many civil rights, cooked up evidence,
19:08
Speaker 1: had no evidence, had no physical evidence, had no witnesses,
19:12
Speaker 1: nothing of the sort. And they basically pinned that murder
19:15
Speaker 1: on twelve guys. Is that right? Nine kids? Nine kids,
19:21
Speaker 1: but they railroaded nine with no evidence that the guy
19:24
Speaker 1: had even been murdered. And eventually the Sleepy Lagoon Defense
19:28
Speaker 1: Committee and the U. S. District Court of Appeals overturned
19:31
Speaker 1: that as a miscarriage of justice. Right, but the damage
19:36
Speaker 1: was already done. Yeah, and his killer, incidentally, was never found.
19:38
Speaker 1: They never singled anyone out, which is sad. That's kind
19:41
Speaker 1: of lost a lot of times, I think. But at
19:44
Speaker 1: the same time, you can't just cook up a case
19:45
Speaker 1: against dudes that were there and say that they did
19:48
Speaker 1: it exactly. So Um. The press attention that the Sleepy
19:52
Speaker 1: Lagoon case received just fan the flames further and further. Um.
19:57
Speaker 1: And then uh, in June, know May of that's when
20:03
Speaker 1: things really started to take a term for the worst. Um.
20:06
Speaker 1: I guess about a dozen servicemen I think Navy boys
20:10
Speaker 1: were um down in East l A. And uh, a
20:15
Speaker 1: few of them approached some girls. One of them kept walking,
20:18
Speaker 1: and the one that kept walking past a group of
20:20
Speaker 1: pouchos who were wearing zoot suits, and when when he
20:25
Speaker 1: passed um one of them apparently raised his hand and
20:28
Speaker 1: what the guy took as a threatening manner, so the
20:31
Speaker 1: serviceman grabbed his arm, and right after that everything went
20:34
Speaker 1: black because somebody knocked him over the back of his
20:36
Speaker 1: head with something and he fell and broke his jawn
20:38
Speaker 1: in two places. Okay, they gotta see it, but before
20:43
Speaker 1: they even react, the the pouchos jump them, and these
20:49
Speaker 1: eleven other servicemen fight their way out and fight their
20:53
Speaker 1: way over to where the guy is laying, the guy
20:56
Speaker 1: who's knocked out with the broken jaw and him and
20:58
Speaker 1: get him out of there. So this is not This
21:01
Speaker 1: is not bode well for UM Mexican American white relations
21:06
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles in ninety A few days after that, like,
21:11
Speaker 1: revenge is on the mind of everybody after news of
21:13
Speaker 1: this gets out, Yeah, big time, especially in the military community.
21:16
Speaker 1: And basically sort of the same thing happened Main Street
21:19
Speaker 1: East l A on June three. Eleven sailors got off
21:23
Speaker 1: a bus and there were words with a gang of
21:28
Speaker 1: young Mexicans. And when I say gang, I should say group,
21:31
Speaker 1: and we shouldn't say necessarily Mexicans. The likelihood was that
21:35
Speaker 1: they were Mexicans and authorities, but there they were Latino Americans.
21:40
Speaker 1: I tried to get to the whole bottom of the
21:42
Speaker 1: word Chicano as well. I know hispanic is from Ronald Reagan?
21:48
Speaker 1: Is it? And it's basically it insinuates that everybody from
21:51
Speaker 1: Central or Latin America or South America comes from Hispaniola. Well,
21:55
Speaker 1: and what I found from Chicano was that it was
21:57
Speaker 1: a derogatory term early on, very negative of but it
22:01
Speaker 1: meant specifically Mexican American. And then later I believe they
22:05
Speaker 1: some some of them chose to embrace that word pride.
22:09
Speaker 1: Yeah there's sixties. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I don't know
22:12
Speaker 1: where it stands today, so say it. Uh So they
22:17
Speaker 1: ran into this group of young Latinos dressed in zoot suits,
22:20
Speaker 1: gotten an argument. The sailors, of course, claimed that they
22:24
Speaker 1: were jumped, although it's unclear exactly how it started, and
22:27
Speaker 1: the l a p D responded and with a group
22:31
Speaker 1: of off duty officers and on duty officers, officers calling
22:34
Speaker 1: themselves the Vengeance Squad and they basically took it upon
22:39
Speaker 1: themselves to clean up the streets of East l A
22:42
Speaker 1: to the cops rough house style. The cops, including off
22:45
Speaker 1: duty cops, took on the name the Vengeance Squad and
22:50
Speaker 1: went down to the Latin American Quarters, Latino American Quarters,
22:54
Speaker 1: and just started beating people up. Yeah, and this really
22:56
Speaker 1: really set off what would be known as the zoot Suit.
22:59
Speaker 1: Right the next day, on June four, about two hundred U. S.
23:04
Speaker 1: Navy servicemen jumped in a bunch of taxis, went to
23:07
Speaker 1: East l A. And a caravan, yeah, and a caravan
23:10
Speaker 1: like a mob essentially, and started beating up Mexican kids,
23:15
Speaker 1: twelve and thirteen year old boys, clubbing them, stripping them
23:18
Speaker 1: of their clothes, burning their clothes. Those are That was
23:21
Speaker 1: the first group they encountered, and a bunch of adults
23:23
Speaker 1: tried to intervene. They got Club two. Then after that
23:26
Speaker 1: it wasn't just people wearing zutsus, it was any Latino
23:29
Speaker 1: American that they saw. They stormed movie theaters, they stormed bars,
23:33
Speaker 1: they stormed like and yeah, they pulled them off the
23:36
Speaker 1: street cars. Yeah. They and black guys got caught up
23:39
Speaker 1: in it too. African American guy on on the street car.
23:44
Speaker 1: And I think it wasn't watts Um who was pulled
23:47
Speaker 1: off and beat into a pulp by servicemen just because
23:50
Speaker 1: he happened to be sitting there and was black. It
23:53
Speaker 1: was literally a riot and it was perpetrated by white
23:56
Speaker 1: servicemen for several days. It was known as the Zutsu riots.
24:00
Speaker 1: Ops were there, but they had orders to not arrest
24:04
Speaker 1: any of the servicemen, so they were kind of given
24:07
Speaker 1: carte blanche for a few days. So for a few days.
24:10
Speaker 1: Finally the Los Angeles City Council comes to it since
24:13
Speaker 1: its in bans the presence of any servicemen um in
24:19
Speaker 1: that area of Los Angeles and issues in ordinance whereby
24:25
Speaker 1: zoos suits are prohibited. And in the end, a hundred
24:28
Speaker 1: and fifty people were injured in the riots. Police arrested
24:31
Speaker 1: more than five hundred Latinos on charges ranging from riding
24:35
Speaker 1: to vagrancy. And I don't know if any servicemen were arrested.
24:39
Speaker 1: I think a bagel number is probably a good guess.
24:44
Speaker 1: I couldn't find any. Let's not say it didn't happen,
24:46
Speaker 1: but my feelings it was probably a hero and they,
24:50
Speaker 1: you know, the local press got ahold of this and
24:52
Speaker 1: called it a quote cleansing effect and said it was
24:54
Speaker 1: a pretty great thing going on in the city, when
24:57
Speaker 1: in fact it was one of the darkest, some of
25:00
Speaker 1: the darkest days of Los Angeles in their history. Pretty
25:04
Speaker 1: sad it is. It's pretty sad and strange story. Yeah,
25:09
Speaker 1: do you, I mean, is there anything else do this? Um? No,
25:13
Speaker 1: I don't. The aftermath is I'll sell you. One interesting
25:17
Speaker 1: thing from the article was that years later, young Russian
25:22
Speaker 1: Soviet UH teenagers would wear zoot suits as an act
25:26
Speaker 1: of defiance against communist against communism, So this article of clothing,
25:30
Speaker 1: this fashion statement, was a lot more than that. It's
25:33
Speaker 1: pretty interesting, and this is one of those weird moments
25:35
Speaker 1: in history where it's not just like, did you know
25:38
Speaker 1: the zoot suit caused this riot and then you find
25:40
Speaker 1: out that it didn't. Really, this genuinely started it. This
25:45
Speaker 1: was part of this made um these the pouchos easily
25:49
Speaker 1: identified targets. The whole reason they were wearing it was
25:52
Speaker 1: out of defiance, and it just irked the establishment, like
25:55
Speaker 1: the zoot suit caused these riots. It's crazy. It is crazy,
25:59
Speaker 1: um and had another lasting legacy, if I may it,
26:03
Speaker 1: um it juvenile delinquency. The whole concept of that coming
26:08
Speaker 1: out of this area in this era, um I believe
26:12
Speaker 1: gave rise to the like a slew of great movies,
26:16
Speaker 1: Rebel without a Cause, The Wild Ones and If I May.
26:22
Speaker 1: I was a teenage Werewolf starring Michael Landon, who was
26:26
Speaker 1: a character settled with a terrible affliction of throwing milk.
26:31
Speaker 1: So there's this little clip. I would like to say, Okay,
26:35
Speaker 1: I put you out of fight three times myself in
26:38
Speaker 1: the last month. You're just lucky to want any formal
26:40
Speaker 1: complaints the time before this and the supermarket it was
26:44
Speaker 1: the checker's mistake, but you didn't even give him a
26:46
Speaker 1: chance to rectify. At Boom, you throw a cart in
26:48
Speaker 1: the milk right at him contained bowline growth hormone, and
26:51
Speaker 1: he turned into a giant cow. So that was the
26:54
Speaker 1: Mystery Science Theater three thousand take of Michael Landon and
26:57
Speaker 1: his milk throwing problem awesome, which probably wouldn't have existed
27:01
Speaker 1: had zoot suits not coming about. I've never heard of
27:05
Speaker 1: that movie. I Was a teenage Werewolf. Yeah, I wonder
27:08
Speaker 1: if they picked him because of his huge mound of hair,
27:11
Speaker 1: maybe because he did look kind of Werewolf. He right
27:13
Speaker 1: out of the kids close. Yeah, even without the Mr
27:16
Speaker 1: Science Theater three thousand guys um discussing it. I guess
27:20
Speaker 1: just fun to watch it is. It's it's kind of
27:22
Speaker 1: a cool movie. Yeah. I look forward podcast on the
27:24
Speaker 1: Stonewall Riots. We're gonna cover that soon too. That's another
27:27
Speaker 1: overlooked blight of American history. Yes, we like to point
27:30
Speaker 1: these out. Um. If you want to learn more about
27:33
Speaker 1: all the stuff we talked about, like Cab Callaway's job dictionary,
27:37
Speaker 1: you should search for that on your favorite search engine.
27:40
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. Yeah, you could also search for zoot
27:42
Speaker 1: suits Smithsonian. Um then'll bring up a pretty cool article
27:46
Speaker 1: from I think like four it's pretty comprehensive. And then
27:49
Speaker 1: of course the article on our own beloved side is
27:52
Speaker 1: excellent as well. You can type in zoot suits, zoot
27:56
Speaker 1: space s U I T S. If you haven't known
27:59
Speaker 1: what we've been talking about this entire time, you want
28:01
Speaker 1: to type that into the search bart how stuff works
28:03
Speaker 1: dot com. And since I said search bar friends neighbors,
28:07
Speaker 1: it is time for a listener mail. You know some
28:13
Speaker 1: of that drive Cab Callaway, jazz drive is still like
28:17
Speaker 1: a few of those words I recognize it's still being used.
28:19
Speaker 1: It's kind of cool. Oh yeah, he established a lot
28:21
Speaker 1: of them. Um Like, I'm not nearly cool enough to
28:26
Speaker 1: speak like this on a regular basis, but that's all
28:28
Speaker 1: I want in life. Really Like Corny came came from
28:30
Speaker 1: this era really groovy okay, Um, i'd say groovy a lot.
28:35
Speaker 1: Moo juice for milk. I've never heard that. You've not
28:38
Speaker 1: heard that. Um, there's Buddy G as a guy like, thanks,
28:42
Speaker 1: Buddy G. I've heard that. Um, but it's g h
28:45
Speaker 1: e okay, Um, crumb crushers for Keith Night, freebie, no charge,
28:53
Speaker 1: broadest free that that came in there, give me some skin.
28:57
Speaker 1: It all came out of this era pretty yeah, And
29:01
Speaker 1: we would not have one of the better parts of
29:03
Speaker 1: the movie Airplane if if Cab Callaway and his cronies
29:08
Speaker 1: head and to come up with this. And I wish
29:10
Speaker 1: I had one cell of my body that was as
29:12
Speaker 1: cool as Cab Callowe loves he was a cool dude,
29:14
Speaker 1: you know. Miny the moocher like has a lot of
29:16
Speaker 1: drug references in it. Yes, Smokey is cokey, He's like cocaine.
29:20
Speaker 1: And they talked about kicking the gong around, which apparently
29:23
Speaker 1: smoking opium and many actually. In the extended version, Um
29:29
Speaker 1: is taken to an asylum where she dies, and that's
29:33
Speaker 1: why the song ends with poor men play or man,
29:37
Speaker 1: poor man? All right, Josh, I'm gonna call this, uh
29:45
Speaker 1: polygraph inside scoop. Oh yeah, that's a pretty good one.
29:48
Speaker 1: Did anybody ever offer you a polygraph test? That's right now?
29:52
Speaker 1: Just listen to podcast, oh, he said, Dear Josh, Chuck
29:55
Speaker 1: and Gary, I just listen to your podcast on polygraphs.
30:00
Speaker 1: I thought my personal experience might add a little to
30:02
Speaker 1: the discussion. I was asked at one point in my
30:04
Speaker 1: life to submit to polygraph exams as a witness and
30:07
Speaker 1: a crime. I was interviewed by two different polygraphers at
30:10
Speaker 1: different times. One piece of equipment I did not hear
30:13
Speaker 1: you describe was a pad that you sit on, which
30:16
Speaker 1: registered whether or not you fidgeted during questions. I'm glad
30:19
Speaker 1: you said fidgeted instead of what. Okay, this may not
30:24
Speaker 1: be standard, though, because only the first examiner and used one.
30:28
Speaker 1: I was not given a pretest like you described in
30:30
Speaker 1: either case. However, they did tell me all six of
30:33
Speaker 1: the questions in advance and uh, which is sort of
30:36
Speaker 1: like a pretest. I guess yeah, he just didn't have
30:38
Speaker 1: to answer them, and the polygrapher asked him to make
30:41
Speaker 1: sure he understood all of the six questions. Uh. The
30:44
Speaker 1: first was something like are their lights on in the room?
30:47
Speaker 1: And in both cases there were questions like are you worried?
30:50
Speaker 1: I will ask a question we did not go over. Uh.
30:54
Speaker 1: Then I got different versions of the same question, for example,
30:56
Speaker 1: did you see a man in a blue jacket? Or
30:59
Speaker 1: was a man wearing a blue jacket at the scene.
31:01
Speaker 1: After the questions were done, I got a break from
31:03
Speaker 1: the machine. Then I got all the questions again in
31:06
Speaker 1: a different order, followed by another break, and then another
31:09
Speaker 1: round of the same questions. Asking each question in a
31:12
Speaker 1: different way multiple times was apparently to reduce the possibility
31:16
Speaker 1: of reporting the false reading. But I did notice a
31:19
Speaker 1: couple of hinky things guys. For example, the first examiner
31:22
Speaker 1: had me closed my eyes so that the readings would
31:24
Speaker 1: be guaranteed to be in response to his questions. The
31:27
Speaker 1: second guy did not ask me to do so, and
31:29
Speaker 1: when I asked him if I should, he said it
31:31
Speaker 1: didn't matter. Pretty interesting. You also mentioned techniques for fooling
31:36
Speaker 1: a polygraph, according to a sign in the waiting room.
31:38
Speaker 1: These techniques can actually cause false positives more than false negatives,
31:43
Speaker 1: though it's probably a biased source. Although yeah, also they
31:49
Speaker 1: ask you to keep your feet flat on the ground
31:51
Speaker 1: through the tests of the tack trick. Wouldn't be possible,
31:55
Speaker 1: that is for Matthew, and Matthew says I, by the way,
31:58
Speaker 1: am one of the few listeners who would be thrilled
32:00
Speaker 1: if you included tribal drums in the background of your episodes.
32:04
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, with you reading listener mail throughout the whole time,
32:08
Speaker 1: all those combined with the track of us just doing
32:11
Speaker 1: our thing right. So is that why we're hearing this
32:13
Speaker 1: right now? Weird? I hadn't noticed it. Interesting. When did
32:18
Speaker 1: that start? I don't know where it is? Well, okay, well,
32:21
Speaker 1: thank you Matthew. Um. Also, we want to thank our
32:25
Speaker 1: house band of tribal drummers, and we want to thank
32:28
Speaker 1: our producer Jerry for bending to our every whim. Yeah,
32:33
Speaker 1: if you have any info about a cool little piece
32:37
Speaker 1: of history that may be overlooked, we want to hear
32:40
Speaker 1: about it, and we may even podcast about it, and
32:43
Speaker 1: we may even be courteous enough to give you credit
32:46
Speaker 1: for bringing it up. Yeah. Uh. You can tweet it
32:50
Speaker 1: to us, although it would have to be pretty short
32:53
Speaker 1: as far as history goes, but if you want to,
32:56
Speaker 1: it's s y Ska podcast um or on Facebook at
32:59
Speaker 1: facebook dot com slash stuff You Should Know. We also
33:02
Speaker 1: have a couple of spoken word albums up on iTunes
33:06
Speaker 1: and there Stuff you Should Know, super Stuff Guide. They'll
33:08
Speaker 1: cost you, but they're worth it, and you can reach
33:12
Speaker 1: us by email. Chalk That's Right at Stuff Podcast at
33:17
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out
33:25
Speaker 1: our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how
33:28
Speaker 1: Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and
33:31
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