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

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: M Hey everybody, it's me Josh, your old pal, and
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: for this week's s Y s K Select, I've chosen
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: our episode on zoot suits. It is a fascinating overlooked
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: piece of history about how clothes can mean so much
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: more than just what's keeping the elements off of you
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: or keeping your modesty intact. Plus, listen up for a
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: surprise appearance by Mystery Science Theater three thousand. It is
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: quite surprising. Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Chuckers Bryant. And since two of us are sitting together
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: again and it's not lunchtime, um, it's leg wrestling time.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: That's true. This means it's a stuff you should know? Right? Yeah,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: what's up to? How are you? Josh? I'm good. We
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: just got something in today that I want to give
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: a shout out of banks for to our friend Martin
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: van Nostran. Did that come in today today? Okay? He
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: kept emailing us, pestering me has it not come yet?
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Like I like, I'm the Postmaster general or something like that.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: But anyway, He sent us each a T shirt and
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: the new CD of his band. The Bangalore's in Vitro
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Meat is the name of the album, and it's pretty awesome.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I haven't listened to it yet. I just got it,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: can't wait. He sent us some some songs off of
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: it already, some previous cuts. Yeah, he was the first
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: person to record a stuff you should know song like
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: in two thousand eight you remember, well, Yeah, and I
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: think he has a toxic plasmosis song on the new one,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: right he does. Yeah, we've inspired a lot. I think
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: he released a whole album of stuff you should know
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: songs really yeah, and like quick little punk songs to
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: like a minute and a half. So there's like fifty
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: of them. But anyway, thanks a lot to Van Nostrin.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: We won't say his real name, but we know it.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: We do finally, we didn't for a long time. But anyway,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: if you feel like checking that out, it's um. The
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Bangalore's like the city in India and the album is
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: in vitro meat. And we'll probably get in trouble for
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: endorsing this, so Chuck, you want to get to it? Yes,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: have you ever heard of some dumb laws? Yeah? Man,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: there are some dumb laws in this great land of ours.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: For example, if I may have prepared a shortlist. In Alabama,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: bear wrestling matches are prohibited. It's illegal to sell peanuts
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: in Lee County after sundown on Wednesday. It would be
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Lee County, Alabama. Did you give a reason for that one? No,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: there are some This is from I think dumb laws
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: dot com and um. They have like just international laws,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: state laws, local laws, and then under some of them
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: they have like full text of the law or why
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: this law exists. It's pretty comprehensive sit Um. In Hawaii,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: coins are not allowed to be placed in one's ears
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: for spec ending only. Um. All residents may be find
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: as a result of not owning a boat. You're going
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: to Hawaii tomorrow right or a couple of days. I
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: dare you to put a coin in your ear and
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: walk around like I don't own a boat. I don't
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: own a boat. Chumps um back in our fair state
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: of Georgia. To legally use profanity in front of a
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: dead body which lies in a funeral home or in
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: a corner's office, that's respectful. That's a good law. Okay.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Um in Ackworth, which is close to Kennesaw, where I
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: grew up, where you had to own a gun. I
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: didn't know this. In Acworth, all citizens must own a rake.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Really yeah, not a blower? A rake? I think a blower.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: That's kind of like asking a lot of some some
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: of the lower income classes, you know. Um, In Athens
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: on Mondays it's illegal for one to whistle very loudly
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: after eleven pm. What but on Monday's. And then California,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: of course is going to have some zany lass They
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: have tons and tons of wacky dumb laws. Animals are
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: banned from mating publicly within feet of a tavern, school
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: or place of worship. That I agree. When women may
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: not drive in a housecoat too, and Fresno, getting drunk
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: in a playground is against the law, that is sound.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: I don't agree with that one. That's sensible. Uh. And
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: then in Los Angeles it's illegal to wear a zoot suit.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah still still so I bring that up. And I
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: knew chuck with like that last one, because I'm sure
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: there's stories behind almost all of those zany laws, or
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: at least there's some reasoning people don't just make up
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: crazy laws like bear wrestlings. I'm sure, it got out
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: of hand once and now they're just like, that's it.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: It's illegal. So Chuck and I actually know the reason
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: why zoot suits are illegal in Los Angeles County, California,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: and we're going to tell you about it today. It's
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: pretty neat. This little article started off as a bit
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: of a uh a lark. I don't know, but we
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: thought zoot suits. Those are interesting and cool. But it's
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: more than a suit, as it turns out, it really is.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: It was at least you should probably mention, like, what
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: is a zoot suit, Chuck. Everybody's seen them before. Yeah,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: back in the nineteen thirties. Uh, they were very much
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: in fashion, especially in uh in uh Latino communities, in
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: African American communities coast to coast though. Yeah, it seems
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: like uh, Caesar Chavez, Malcolm X, Cab Callaway, big band leaders,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: the jazz scene in New York all very much associated
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: with zoot suits. Tom Cat from Tom and Jerry, Yeah,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: who was going after a girl and she said he
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: was a square and was corny and he goes out
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: and gets some a zoot suit and becomes a cool cat,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: cool cat. Yeah, so you'll know a zoot suit. They
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: were originally worn made of wool and then later rayon.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: But you'll know it because they're very distinct. They have
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: very broad, padded shoulders, very long waisted coats. Uh. Suit
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: pants were worn really really high, like up over the
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: belly and uh, we're very tight at the top, then
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: ballooned out like mc hammer style and then tapered back
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: down again at the ankle or were pegged. Oh of course, yeah,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: that's how you achieved that look. And um, the jackets
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: exaggerated contours and colors. A lot of times they would
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: wear the big pocket watch chain that went down to
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: their knee and the hat with a feather, and it
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: was shoes, pointy shoes. Sure, um so they if it
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: sounds a lot like um, pimps, seventies pimps. Yeah, where
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: to you? Not too far off? I guess I think
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: you could make an argument that it was a predecessor
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: of that. And in fact, you mentioned Malcolm X favorite
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: ZOOS suits. I didn't realize this today, but in researching
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: zo suits, Malcolm X used to be called Detroit Red,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: who was in fact a pimp. Yeah, and he apparently
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: got his education in Harlem and became Malcolm X. Did
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: you not see the movie? No, it was good. From
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: what I remember from the awesome Spike Lee movie was
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: that he was into the zoot scene earlier. And then
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: once he you know, became Malcolm X and uh not,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: what was his original name, Shabaz? Yes, I believe so
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Malcolm Shabaz. So once he became Malcolm X and got
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: serious about the civil rights, he ditched the zoot suit
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: and stuff and a little more traditionally garbed right. Um,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: another way, So the zoos suit you you just nailed
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: it on the head. You said, the zoos suit scene.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: It was very much part of a scene, part of
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: the Harlem renaissance. Um. It was part of the pacho
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: scene out in Los Angeles, which we'll talk about. Pacho, Pacho, pachuco, pachuco.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: I used, I like slang on top of slang, pacho. Um.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: And so it was kind of the uniform of this
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: certain kind of scene, apparently the upscale black nightclubs of Harlem.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Like if if you saw an African American man walking
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: around where in a zoot suit, you're like, that guy
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: is a high roller and he knows how to get
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: into the good clubs. I thought you were gonna bust
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: out some Cab Callaway slang. Well, you mentioned Cab Callaway
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: was one of the the people who love zoos suits,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: and he wrote a dictionary of slang, of jive slang.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Thank you. I could not be square if I tried um,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: And one of the one of the words that he
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: put down was zoot which he says means exaggerated. It
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: turns out that there's a whole lot of mystery surrounding
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: the origins of zoot suit. But if I may, in
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Cab Callaway's jive slang, describe what a zoot suit looks like,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: you did a great job in normal, square, corny terms.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: But if you want to talk like a hepcat from
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: the jive jump zoot suit era, you would describe it
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: as a killer dealer coat with a drape shape, real
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: pleats and shoulders padded like a lunatic cell. Well, it's
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: interesting that he said drape because originally they were known
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: as drape suits and even advertised as extreme quote extreme
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: drapes in newspapers. Yeah pretty cool. Yeah, So the zoosus
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: hanging out there, it's kind of weird. Ralph Ellison wrote
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: about UM wrote about it in as an Invisible Man.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: His novel The Narrator encounters um three young and extravagantly
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: dressed blacks in their zoos suits, and he says that
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: they were the stewards of something uncomfortable. So he's saying, like,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: there's just it's almost like it was. It's the same
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: as if you're if you saw a bunch of raid
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: kids wearing like the stupid pants yes in the nineties
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: or whatever, you know, or hip hop kids today, it
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: was this. It was the same thing, except this was
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: much more upscale, right than that. But it was basically
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: lands today. Yeah, that people have trouble walking in, but
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: they're still gotta have that look, you know, right, because
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: that's what the cool kids do exactly. So this was
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: you could would argue the original American version of counter
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: culture dress agreed, and it grew out of Harlem and
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: was later adopted by um Mexican Americans or Latino Americans
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. Yeah, what's this one bit that it
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: could have originated in Gainesville, Georgia? How about that? So yeah,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of there's some origin stories, right, and yeah,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: and they're none of them are the same, right, and
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: they're all very different. No, but I do like that
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: when you're talking about from Gainesville, what is it? Yeah?
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: They a man, a bus driver, I'm sorry, bust worker
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: named Clyde Duncan from New York. Um came back to
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: New York with one and said he bought it in Gainesville, Georgia,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: And allegedly, uh, he had been inspired by Gone with
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: the Wind and wanted to look like Rhet Butler and
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: so got a Taylor in Gainesville to make him this sing.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: I'd like to go with that story. And well, the
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: New York Times put that story forth and they said
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: it basically on it quickly in and um that was
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: the story for many many years until his oriens actually
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: started to put real effort and thought it into the
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: zoot suits. Um, and they found that there It's possibly true,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: but most likely uh, it came out of either guys
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: like Cab Callaway wearing them or guys like Cab Callaway
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: copying people in the jazz scene. And then you know
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: it basically going forth like that, asks good m H. Ultimately,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: it seems that it did come out of this era,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: whether it was uh, this Clyde Duncan fella who had
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: the idea originally or whatever. You can basically say the
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Harlem Renaissance. Zoot suits came out of that. And you know,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: I knew that. I did not know of its associate
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Asian within the Latino and largely Mexican community. No, but
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: that's where like really started to It switched when it
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: hit the Latino American community. Before it was just like,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: I'm wealthy, I can get into good clubs. I'm part
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: of this club scene in Harlem. Um. When it hit
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles and was taken up by the pachos Um Square, Uh,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: it changed, it transformed, It turned into something political and
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: became ultimately a sign of defiance. Yeah. In the World
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: War Two, you know, everyone knows that there was there
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: was rationing going on everything from food to metals and
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: ultimately wool and cloth. So wearing a zoot suit, which
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: required an abundance of cloth was deemed not patriotic because
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: you're basically flaunting, Hey, I don't care about the war effort.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna wear my zoot suit. That's more important to me,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: right exactly. So. Um, In in the forties, the War
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Production Board basically said we need to cut back all
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: fabric use in the States by and to help you.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Here is the new American suit. It's streamline, it uses
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: less fabric. As long as you're making stuff according to these, um,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: these sketches, your patriotic, you're American, You're within the law. Right.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Uncle Sam wanted to squear tight clothes pretty much. And
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: if you think about if you look at the suits
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: in the fifties and sixties and after the forties, Um,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: the American the classic American suit is narrow, narrow cut,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: the cuffs are high. Yeah. Um, so I wonder if
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: that came out of I'm sure it did, but you
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: can take what they were saying a different way, and
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: that Uncle Sam's telling you to dress like this, and
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: everybody dressed like that. So zoos suits immediately became, um,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: a symbol of defiance. Anybody who wore him was saying,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: you know, up yours, Uncle Sam. Uh. And it was
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: ultimately illegal to man facture or advertise as zoot suit
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: or anything that fell outside of those American suits. So incredibly,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: bootleg and underground tailors grew up to make and sell
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: zoot suits, and at the same time, especially in Los Angeles,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: it had an association with UH gang activity, criminal activity
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: and thuggery, largely because of newspapers that would call them,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: you know, zoot suitors committing crimes. They would you know,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: label people in its particular clothing as being criminals. Essentially. Yeah, well,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: racism is definitely nothing new in this country, and it
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: was um hot and heavy in the late thirties early
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: forties in Los Angeles among um it was mainly targeted,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: I think, toward Latino Americans, but it's not like African
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Americans didn't get the brunt of it as well. But
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: basically it was white people in California were like, hey,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of you these days, so you're making
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: us a little nervo us and um, you wearing the
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: zoots suit is easy to target. It just so happened
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: that the group that they were targeting was actually kind
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: of homogeneous people who wore zoos suits, kind of wore
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: them in defiance, but also identified themselves with them, right,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: the pachos. It was a statement of independence, not necessarily
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: thumbing your nose at the United States, but just hey,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I'm independent, I'm Latino, I'm living in Los Angeles, and
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: this is our look. So the pachos, Yeah, the pachucos,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: the pachos. I'm seeing pachos right here, Octavio pa said, pachos. Yeah, okay, Um,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: So the pachos were it's They weren't an import from Mexico.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: They were a real American hybrid. They were a second
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: generation UM Latino American kids who, ironically, because of the
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: war effort, were latch key kids. Their parents were off
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: working the night shift UM for war production and they
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: were basically left to them their own devices. They called
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: themselves twenty four hour orphans, the first latch key kids
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: and um. They were also arguably the first rebels, and
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: out of their emergence in America, UM came the whole
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: concept of juvenile delinquency. Yeah, I love that one quote
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: from Octavio pass Can I read that. He said the
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: zoot suit was a symbol of love and joy or
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: horror and loathing, an embodiment of liberty, of disorder, of
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: the forbidden. So it was the single fashion item was
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: at the same time asserting your independence and individuality as
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: well as what white folk saw as thumb in their nose,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: the white man. Basically, Um, and I guess that's exactly
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: what they were doing, because, as you said, like they
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: weren't necessarily wearing the zoos suit as a statement. They
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: weren't anti war protesters, but it was more like, you
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: know what, I'm sick of you racist white people, and
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm not going to hide my identity. I'm not
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: going to try to blend in. I'm not going to
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: go back to my traditional roots from Mexico because I
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: wasn't born here, but I'm not gonna, you know, join
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: the service and wear an American suit like like. So
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: this is this was the compromise, and it ticked white
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: people off like crazy, especially in Los Angeles. Yeah. Well,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: at the time, in southern California, there was an enormous
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: presence of UM service manager who were waiting to ship
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: out to the Pacific Theater from California. Yeah, and they were,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: you know, rubbing elbows with these guys that a lot
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: of people thought were gang members and zoot suitors, and
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: they rubbed elbows not in a very good way either,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: which you know, ultimately led to the zoot Suit riots.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: But there were some pretty striking events that led up
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: to that NTE summer. So one of the things you
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: said you mentioned was that they were were getting negative press, right,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: So people in zoos suits were associated with things like um. Uh,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: let me see quote. Um, the record already reveals killing
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: stabbings in cases of innocent women having been molested by
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: zoot suit gangsters. That's from the Los Angeles Examiner. And
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: uh the article was titled police must clean up l
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: a hoodlumism, which is not a word, right, but so
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: so there's this joint effort of um just general racism
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: among whites in the in the general public UM, and
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: servicemen waiting to be deployed specifically, and the Los Angeles
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: media kind of fanning the flames, that's right. And then
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: the Sleepy Lagoon murder happened. The Sleepy Lagoon case Sleepy Lagoon,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Josh was the reservoir by the l A River. It's
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: not there anymore. Is that fascinting? It's like a plastics
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: plant there now there's no reservoir. Yes, so don't go
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: looking for it. Even though they said it's roughly it
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: was at fifty Slaws and Boulevard in Maywood. I know
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: where that is, actually. I think it's on the way
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: to the airport. Uh So the Sleepy Lagoon case. UM.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: At the time, Mexican Americans were denied access to public
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: pools and swimming holes and stuff like that, so they
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: used Sleepy Lagoon as a big hangout where they would
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: go and listen to music and swim and have a
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: good time. Um. In August to n uh, the body
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: of Jose Diaz was found at this reservoir. And what
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: I gathered there was a big party, like a big
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: house party, where a fight broke out and one guy
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: ended up getting killed. And as a result, they rounded
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: up three to four hundred Mexican American youths, had a
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: corrupt trial where they basically denied the many civil rights,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: cooked up evidence, had no evidence, had no physical evidence,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: had no witnesses, nothing of the sort, and they basically
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: pinned that murder on twelve guys. Is that right? Nine kids? Yeah,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: but they railroaded nine with no evidence that the guy
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: had even been murdered. And eventually the Sleepy Lagoon Defense
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Committee and the U. S. District Court of Appeals overturned
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: that as a miscarriage of justice. Right, but the damage
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: was already done. Yeah, and his killer, incidentally, was never found.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: They never singled anyone out, which is sad. That's kind
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: of lost a lot of times, I think. But at
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: the same time, you can't just cook up a case
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: against dudes that were there and say that they did
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: it exactly. So Um. The press attention that the Sleepy
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Lagoon case received just fan the flames further and further. Um.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: And then uh in June no May of Yeah, that's
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: when things really started to take a term for the worst.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: That's right, UM. I guess about a dozen servicemen I
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: think Navy boys were um down in East l A.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: And uh, a few of him approached some girls. One
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: of them kept walking, and the one that kept walking
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: past a group of pouchos who were wearing zoot suits
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: and when when he passed um, one of them apparently
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: raised his hand and what the guy took as a
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: threatening manner, So the serviceman grabbed his arm, and right
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: after that everything went black because somebody knocked him over
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: the back of his head with something and he fell
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: and broke his jaw in two places. Okay, the other
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: guy to see this, the other guy to see it,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: but before they even react, the the pouchos jump them,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: and these eleven other servicemen fight their way out and
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: fight their way over to where the guy is laying
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: the guy with who's knocked out with the broken jaw
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: and him and get him out of there. So this
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: is not this is not bode well for um Mexican
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: American white relations in Los Angeles. A few days after that,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: like revenge is on the mind of everybody after news
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: of this gets out, Yeah, big time, especially in the
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: mid military community. And basically sort of the same thing
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: happened main Street East l A on June three eleven.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Sailors got off a bus and there were words with
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: a gang of young Mexicans. And when I say gang,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: I should say group, and we shouldn't say necessarily Mexicans.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: The likelihood was that they were Mexicans and the authorities,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: but there they were Latino Americans, Okay. I tried to
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: get to the whole bottom of the word Chicano as well.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: I know hispanic is from Ronald Reagan, is it? And
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: it's basically it insinuates that everybody from Central or Latin
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: America or South America comes from Hispaniola. Well, and what
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: I found from Chicano was that it was a derogatory
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: term early on, very negative, but it meant specifically Mexican
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: American and then later I believe they some some of
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: them chose to embrace that word and pride. Yeah there
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: was sixties. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I don't know where
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: it stands today, so let's just say it as watched
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: ska mm hmmm. So they ran into this group of
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: young Latinos dressed in zoot suits, gotten an argument. The sailors,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: of course claimed that they were jumped, although it's unclear
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: exactly how it started, and the l A p D
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: responded and with a group of off duty officers and
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: on duty officers, officers calling themselves the Vengeance Squad, and
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: they basically took it upon themselves to clean up the
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: streets of East l A to the cops rough house style.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: The cops, including off duty cops, took on the name
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: the Vengeance Squad and went down to the Latin American Quarters,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Latino American Quarters and just started beating people up. Yeah,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: and this really really set off what would be known
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: as the zoot Suit Riots. The next day, on June four,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: about two hundred U. S. Navy servicemen jumped in a
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: bunch of taxis went to East l A. And a caravan, Yeah,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: and a caravan like a mob essentially and started beating
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: up Mexican kids, twelve and thirteen year old boys, clubbing them,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: stripping them of their clothes, burning their clothes those That
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: was the first group they encountered, and a bunch of
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: adults tried to intervene. They got Club two. Then after that,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: it wasn't just people wearing zoot suits. It was any
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Latino American that they saw. They stormed movie theaters, they
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: stormed bars, they stormed like and yeah, they pulled them
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: off the street cars. Yeah, they and black guys got
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: caught up in it too. African American guy on on
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: the street car. And I think it wasn't Watts m
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: who was pulled off and beat into a pulp by
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: servicemen just because he happened to be sitting there and
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: was black. It was literally a riot and it was
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: perpetrated by white servicemen for several days. It was known
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: as the zoot Suit Riots. Cops were there, but they
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: had orders to not arrest any of the servicemen, so
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: they were kind of given carte blanche for a few days.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: So for a few days. Finally the Los Angeles City
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Council comes to it, since its in bans the presence
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: of any servicemen um in that area of Los Angeles
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: and issues in ordinance whereby zoots suits are prohibited. And
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: in the end a hundred and fifty people were injured
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: in the riots. Police arrested more than five hundred Latinos
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: on charges ranging from riding to vagrancy. And I don't
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: know if any servicemen were arrested. I think a bagel
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: number servicemen is probably a good guess. I couldn't find any.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Let's not say it didn't happen, but my feelings it
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: was probably zero. And they, you know, the local press
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: got ahold of this and called it a quote cleansing
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: effect and said it was a pretty great thing went
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: on in the city, when in fact it was one
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: of the darkest, some of the darkest days of Los
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Angeles in their history. Pretty sad it is. It's pretty
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: sad and strange story. Yeah, do you, I mean, is
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: there anything else do this? Um? No, I don't. The
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: aftermath is, oh, I'll sell you. One interesting thing from
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: the article was that years later, young Russian Soviet UH
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: teenagers would wear zoot suits as an act of defiance
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: against communist Against communism, so this article of clothing, this
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: fashion statement, was a lot more than that. It's pretty interesting.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: And this is one of those weird moments in history
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: where it's not just like, did you know the zoot
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: suit caused this riot? And then you find out that
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: it didn't. Really, this genuinely started it. This was part
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: of this made um. These the pouchos easily identified targets.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: The whole reason they were wearing it was out of defiance,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: and it just irked the establishment. The zoot suit caused
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: these riots. It's crazy. It is crazy, um and it
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: had another lasting legacy, If I may it um it
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: juvenile delinquency. The whole concept of that coming out of
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: this area and this era, um I believe, gave rise
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: to the like a slew of great movies, Rebel without
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: a Cause, The Wild Ones and If I May I
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: was a teenage werewolf starring Michael Landon who was a
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: character settled with a terrible affliction of throwing milk. So
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: there's this little clip. I would like to say, Okay,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: I put you out of fight three times myself in
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: the last month. You're just lucky to want any formal complaints.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: The time before this and the supermarket. It was the
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: checker's mistake. Yeah, but you didn't even give him a
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: chance to rectify. At Boom, You throw a cart in
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: the milk right at him. It contained bowline growth hormone,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: and he turned into a giant cow. So that was
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: the Mystery Science Theater three thousand take of Michael Landon,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: of course, and his milk throwing problem, which probably wouldn't
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: have existed had zoot suits not coming about. I've never
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: heard of that movie. I was a teenage werewolf. Yeah,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: I wonder if they picked him because of his huge
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: mound of hair, maybe because he did look kind of werewolf.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: He right out of the games close. Yeah, even without
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: the Mr Science Theater three thousand, guys um discussing it,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: I guess just fun to watch it is. It's it's
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: kind of a cool movie. Yeah, I look forward podcast
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: on the Stonewall Riots. We're gonna cover that soon too.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: That's another overlooked blight of American history. Yes, we like
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: to point these out. Um. If you want to learn
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: more about all the stuff we talked about, like Cab
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Callaway's jib dictionary, you should search for that on your
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: favorite search engine. It's pretty cool. Yeah, you could also
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: search for zoot suits Smithsonian. Um, that'll bring up a
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: pretty cool article from I think it's pretty comprehensive. And then,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: of course the article on our own beloved side is
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: excellent as well. You can type in zoot suits zo
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: O T space S U I T S. If you
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: haven't known what we've been talking about this entire time,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: you want to type that into the search bar how
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. And since I said search bar, friends, neighbors,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: it is time for listener mail. You know, some of
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: that jive, cab, callaway, jazz jive is still like a
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: few of those words I recognized is still being used.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: It's kind of cool. Oh yeah, he established a lot
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: of them. Um Like, I'm not nearly cool enough to
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: speak like this on a regular basis, but that's all
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: I want in life. Really, Like Corny came came from
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: this era really groovy, Okay, Um, I say groovy a
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: lot moo juice for milk? Never heard that? You have
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: not heard that? Um, there's Buddy G as a guy Like, thanks,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Buddy G. I've heard that. Um, but it's g h
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: e okay, Um, crumb crushers for Keith nice freebe no charge,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: broad us free. That that came from there, give me
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: some skin, shake hands. It all came out of this era. Yeah,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: and we would not have one of the better parts
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: of the movie Airplane. Yeah if if Cab Callaway and
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: his cronies head and to come up with this. And
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: I wish I had one cell of my body that
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: was as cool as Cab Calloway was. He was a
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: cool dude. You know. Many the moocher like has a
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: lot of drug references in it. Yes, Smokey is cokey,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: he's like cocaine. And they talked about kicking the gong around,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: which apparently smoking opium and many. Actually in the extended version,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Um is taken to an asylum where she dies and
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: that's why the song ends with poor men, poor man,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: poor man. All right, Josh, I'm gonna call this, uh
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: polygraph inside scoop. Oh, yeah, it's a pretty good one.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Did anybody ever offer you a polygraph test? Okay, that's
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: right now. Just listen to podcast, oh, he said, Dear Josh,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Chuck and Gary, I just listened to your podcast on polygraphs.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: I thought my personal experience might add a little to
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: the discussion. I was asked at one point in my
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: life to submit to polygraph exams as a witness and
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: a crime. I was interviewed by two different polygraphers at
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: different times. One piece of equipment I did not hear
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: you describe was a pad that you sit on, which
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: registered whether or not you fidgeted during questions. I'm glad
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: you said fidgeted instead of what. Okay. This may not
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: be standard, though, because only the first examiner used one.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: I was not given a pretest like you described in
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: either case. However, they did tell me all six of
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: the questions in advance and uh, which is sort of
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: like a pretest. I guess yeah, he just didn't have
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: to answer them, and the polygrapher asked him to make
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: sure he understood all of the six questions. The first
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: was something like are their lights on in the room?
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: And in both cases there were questions like are you worried?
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: I will ask a question we did not go over uh.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Then I got different versions of the same question, for example,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: did you see a man in a blue jacket? Or
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: was a man wearing a blue jacket at the scene.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: After the questions were done, I got a break from
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: the machine. Then I got all the questions again in
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: a different order, followed by another break, and then another
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: round of the same questions. Asking each question in a
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: different way multiple times was apparently to reduce the possibility
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: of reporting a false reading. But I did notice a
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: couple of hinky things guys. For example, the first examiner
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: had me closed my eyes so that the readings would
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: be guaranteed to be in response to his questions. The
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: second guy did not ask me to do so, and
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: when I asked him if I should, he said it
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: didn't matter. Pretty interesting. You also mentioned techniques for fooling
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: a polygraph. According to a sign in the waiting room,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: these techniques can actually cause false positives more than false negatives,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: though it's probably a biased source. Although Yeah. Also they
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: ask you to keep your feet flat on the ground
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: through the tests, so the attack trick wouldn't be possible,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: And that is from matt Few and Matthew says. I,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: by the way, am one of the few listeners who
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: would be thrilled if you included tribal drums in the
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: background of your episodes. Oh yeah, with you reading listener
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: mail throughout the whole time. Yeah, all those combined with
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: the track of us just doing our thing right? So
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: is that why we're hearing this right now? Weird? I
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: hadn't noticed it. Interesting, when did that start? I don't
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: know where it is? Well, okay, well, thank you Matthew um. Also,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: we want to thank our house band of tribal drummers,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: and we want to thank our producer Jerry for bending
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: to our every whim. Yeah, if you have any info
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: about a cool little piece of history that may be overlooked,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: we want to hear about it, and we may even
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: podcast about it, and we may even be courteous enough
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: to give you credit for bringing it up. Yeah. Uh,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: you can tweet it to us, although it would have
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: to be pretty short as far as history goes, but
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: if you wanted to, it's s y SK podcast um
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: or on Facebook at facebook dot com slash stuff you
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Should Know. We also have a couple of spoken word
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: albums up on iTunes under Stuff you Should Know, Super
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: Stuff Guide. They'll cost you, but they're worth it, and
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: you can reach us by email. Chalk That's Right at
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. Stuff you
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts for My Heart radio because at the
• 34:31
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• 34:34
  Speaker 1: your favorite shows,