Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 153. Zoot Suit Riots

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153. Zoot Suit Riots · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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Speaker 1: Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to Who Did What Now?
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Speaker 1: The history podcast That's not Your History class with me,
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Speaker 1: your host Katie Charlwood, History Harlotte and reader of books.
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Speaker 1: So people are trying to source something called throat coat
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Speaker 1: for me, apparently to think that actors use to protect
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Speaker 1: their voice and their vocal cords and shit, because all
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Speaker 1: of the scream whispering I have been doing for this
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Speaker 1: concentration camp series, which if you haven't seen it on
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Speaker 1: social media, I am teaching about concentration camps and the
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Speaker 1: concentration camp network currently specifically you know Nazi Jermy and
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Speaker 1: the Holocaust, but that will expand because nothing exists in
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Speaker 1: a vacuum. Like one of the things I've found really
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Speaker 1: challenging is because I've studied this, like I studied this
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Speaker 1: for seven years, right, and even I like, forget how
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Speaker 1: absolutely gergantuum this topic is. And I'm trying to explain
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Speaker 1: that just the whole lifespan of the concentration camp system.
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Speaker 1: But again, that doesn't exist again in a vacuum, because
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Speaker 1: this is also part of it's also part of like
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Speaker 1: the Holocaust not to Germany and all the different parts
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Speaker 1: that spread to it, and so one thing led to
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Speaker 1: the other, and why this system happened, and why these
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Speaker 1: camps were here and then they weren't, and you know
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Speaker 1: how they each had a different purpose and sometimes those overlapped,
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Speaker 1: and sometimes it's like a whole it's a whole thing, right,
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Speaker 1: And so a lot of misinformation has come out about
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Speaker 1: the Holocaust, not only Holocaust deniers, but even like basic
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Speaker 1: like ground facts of the whole thing have have been misrepresented,
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Speaker 1: some intentionally some I think it's like a game of telephone,
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Speaker 1: or you hear one thing, and you hear one thing,
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Speaker 1: and then it just kind of changes as the story
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Speaker 1: grows and lives because if we're not taught I think
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Speaker 1: in the Western world specifically about oral history, we're not
2:00
Speaker 1: trained in it, and we're so focused on it having
2:03
Speaker 1: been written down in a book. But books have editors,
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Speaker 1: and again, again, it's just a whole big mess. So
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Speaker 1: I've been doing this and it's it's so big, and
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Speaker 1: then I have questions that people will ask, and then
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Speaker 1: I'm trying to like fill out, you know, these these facts,
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Speaker 1: and a lot of the time I'm starting a video
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Speaker 1: and I'm repeating myself with certain facts because even if
2:28
Speaker 1: I explain that it is a series. Some people are
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Speaker 1: not getting that and they're like, well what about this,
2:33
Speaker 1: and it's like that that was three videos ago, mate,
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Speaker 1: I don't it's a series. So it's all going to
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Speaker 1: go in a collection on my Patreon anyway for free
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Speaker 1: ampaid members, because if I'm putting it free on social media,
2:43
Speaker 1: it's going to be free on the Patreon, but you're
2:45
Speaker 1: gonna have to be a member to see it, because
2:47
Speaker 1: why not? And so like whils would you read? Whiles?
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Speaker 1: Would you read that intent in watching it? You know
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Speaker 1: what I mean. So I'm going to try and get
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Speaker 1: the whole series on there, which I'm sort of working
2:59
Speaker 1: as I'm going along, like I've half a mind, like
3:02
Speaker 1: I know my old history teacher, like were tired, and
3:04
Speaker 1: half of mine to be like Jurre Jerry, you've got
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Speaker 1: Spider Grabb can use it's like an appointer because I've
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Speaker 1: got my lab coat. I've still got my lab coat,
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Speaker 1: so like I could I could use that. That's a
3:17
Speaker 1: long story, by the way, that one. But yeah, it's
3:20
Speaker 1: been it's been a whole whole stressful situation. So I've
3:24
Speaker 1: had to take time off from recording because I messed
3:28
Speaker 1: my voice up so much and added to that, like
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Speaker 1: I've it's it's not great subject matter. And when you
3:36
Speaker 1: have anxiety and the present states, it can be quite
3:42
Speaker 1: difficult from my wee adhd brain. And so I've ended
3:44
Speaker 1: up cleaning my house, which is something I needed to
3:47
Speaker 1: do anyway, but I think it's slowly making me less overwhelmed,
3:53
Speaker 1: which has actually been inspired by a video I saw
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Speaker 1: of a friend mutual quinta one of the above, and
4:02
Speaker 1: they were saying how with their anxiety they had just
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Speaker 1: let everything pile up, you know, n opened mail, the
4:07
Speaker 1: whole shabang dishes and the sink, and I was like, oh, man,
4:11
Speaker 1: I should clean things, and so that's what I did.
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Speaker 1: And do I have a problem that a lot of
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Speaker 1: other avid readers have, which is I know a lot
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Speaker 1: of words. I just don't necessarily know how to pronounce
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Speaker 1: those words, because in fairness, the English language itself is
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Speaker 1: for languages and a trench coate so and the language
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Speaker 1: rules won't always apply. But also I don't speak Polish
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Speaker 1: or German or Hungarian or check and so or No
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Speaker 1: Austrians speak German anyway, but I don't speak any of
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Speaker 1: those languages, right, don't I? Don't know them, and so
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Speaker 1: I struggle with saying certain words because I don't know
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Speaker 1: the language rules, and so I was mispronouncing words all
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Speaker 1: over the shop and like somebody would correct me and
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Speaker 1: I do it right for the next time. I was
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Speaker 1: talking about it in a video. But then I get
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Speaker 1: a message from someone and she's like, hey, Polish is
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Speaker 1: my first language, so you want a hand and I
4:59
Speaker 1: was like, yes, absolutely, idea that way if I get
5:02
Speaker 1: it wrong, I can blame you. And she was like
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Speaker 1: super And so she was teaching me how to pronounce
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Speaker 1: like mydonic because it's the inflection is in the middle
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Speaker 1: of the world, my danik and I was calling it majdanek,
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Speaker 1: so my dnik helman no beljits plats of like those
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Speaker 1: those names that I just I was not getting because
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Speaker 1: they're Polish. And again I don't speak I don't speak
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Speaker 1: any of the Baltic languages I think, and so yeah,
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Speaker 1: that was that was that that was that was difficult,
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Speaker 1: and my mouth. I found it really hard to get
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Speaker 1: my mouth around a lot of those words. So like
5:41
Speaker 1: I'm trying really hard to make sure I am like
5:44
Speaker 1: pronouncing things correctly, and I'm like, I'm not even halfway
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Speaker 1: through this whole series, and I don't know, h it
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Speaker 1: meane to be like the never ending fucking story at
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Speaker 1: this point. Just take me through the swamp marshes at
5:55
Speaker 1: this point. But it's one of those things where it's
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Speaker 1: like it's really really important, it's really really important, and
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Speaker 1: there's a lot of information that people don't know, a
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Speaker 1: lot of basics, and I feel like a lot of
6:05
Speaker 1: the time I'm just covering the basics and I'm thinking
6:08
Speaker 1: I might have to just do a few like Bitty.
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Speaker 1: So it's even it is part of it, just because
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Speaker 1: like at this point, I don't know how else I'm
6:18
Speaker 1: going to cover everything, you know, but we are, Oh,
6:22
Speaker 1: we are quite a bit. And I've been talking a
6:24
Speaker 1: good while, so you're probably ready to hear about some histories.
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Speaker 1: So I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Katie, quite
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Speaker 1: your jibbel jabba, in fact me, In fact you I will.
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Speaker 1: But first we've got to get our source on. Our
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Speaker 1: sources are Murder, The Sleepy Lagoon, Zuch Suits, Race and
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Speaker 1: Riot and Wartimeli by Obregon Pegian. Remember how I said
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Speaker 1: about pronunciation being a hard I also do not speak Spanish. Okay,
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Speaker 1: we have the zoot suit as both costume and symbol
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Speaker 1: by Sarah Elizabeth Howard. The Legacy of the Sleepy lar
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Speaker 1: Gun Murder Case. The role of the Mexican American community
7:17
Speaker 1: in the making of modern Los Angeles by G. Gonzalez,
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Speaker 1: Occupied America, A History of Chicanos by are Acuna. The
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Speaker 1: Mexican American Struggle for civil rights in Los Angeles. The
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Speaker 1: Sleepy Largoon Case He Visited by C. E. Noriega. Threads
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Speaker 1: of the Zsuit Riots by Antonio Franco. We also have
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Speaker 1: articles from the La Times, The New York Times, the
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Speaker 1: La Sentinel, and also our old favorites, History dot com
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Speaker 1: and biogivy dot com. I use it in comfortably good
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Speaker 1: little Let's begin. This is one of the stories I
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Speaker 1: wanted to talk about for such a long time because
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Speaker 1: there's so much to unpack, right, There's there's all these
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Speaker 1: different pieces to it, and it is so often misrepresented
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Speaker 1: because it's called the Zoutzit riots, right, But it wasn't
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Speaker 1: a riot like. That's a misnomer. It wasn't a riot like.
8:15
Speaker 1: It's just the facts being pushed a certain way through bias.
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Speaker 1: And you see that with a lot of the newest
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Speaker 1: headlines that come out about this at the time, like
8:23
Speaker 1: propaganda in the media. What anyway, as I said before,
8:29
Speaker 1: like history does not exist in a vacuum, so we
8:33
Speaker 1: have to, as we have done before, slip into some context,
8:37
Speaker 1: because there are three parts to this. You've got the
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Speaker 1: build up, you've got the catalyst, and you've got the violence.
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Speaker 1: And we have talked before about England colonizing half the world,
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Speaker 1: but all the European powers were at it, so like France, Spain,
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Speaker 1: the Dutch, like all over the place and fun of
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Speaker 1: the act. I looked this up today, seven point five
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Speaker 1: percent of the world speak Spanish, which is interesting when
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Speaker 1: you consider that they are, as of the time of recording,
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Speaker 1: one hundred and ninety six recognized countries, so logically they
9:10
Speaker 1: should all have their own language. I mean even as
9:13
Speaker 1: well when you think that I've said it before, like
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Speaker 1: the concept of a country is actually a fairly a
9:21
Speaker 1: fairly new one because we had like different states and principalities,
9:27
Speaker 1: and if we went from you followed your like feudal lord,
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Speaker 1: like your leader, you're king, and then it wasn't so
9:34
Speaker 1: much geographicals was political, which you could argue is still
9:38
Speaker 1: the way today. But it's again a lot. There's a
9:41
Speaker 1: lot to deal with there and so oh and if
9:44
Speaker 1: you're asking about twenty percent of the world speaks English
9:48
Speaker 1: because population and colonizing, but that also includes people who
9:53
Speaker 1: speak it as a second, third, fourth, fifth language, unlike
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Speaker 1: most of us native English speakers, who can only speak one,
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Speaker 1: I speak one, two. Well, it depends if you include
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Speaker 1: all the halfs of languages I speak where I'm like,
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Speaker 1: I'm good to a point and then afterwards I'm absolute rubbish.
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Speaker 1: So Spain started colonizing what we know as California in
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Speaker 1: the late seventeenth century, and it was still under Spanish
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Speaker 1: rule until the end of the Mexican War of Independence
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Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty one, and then it was under their
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Speaker 1: power until the end of the Mexican American War in
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Speaker 1: eighteen forty eight, when Mexico seeded huge tracts of land
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Speaker 1: in the southwest to the USA areas that would become Nevada, Utah, California,
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Speaker 1: most of Arizona, and some of Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico.
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Speaker 1: New Mexico was part of Mexico. You say shocked, I'm
10:53
Speaker 1: simply shocked. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure the Texans came
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Speaker 1: up with the name Albuquerque, Oh by Thomseelvesia anywhore. On
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Speaker 1: the ninth of September eighteen fifty, California became the thirty
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Speaker 1: first state. And up until like the nineteen tens, the
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Speaker 1: border between the USA and Mexico was fairly soft, and
11:17
Speaker 1: over the years there would be sort of like waves
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Speaker 1: of immigration from Mexico into the US, and so by
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Speaker 1: the nineteen forties, the Mexican community in the southwest US
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Speaker 1: comprised of immigrants but also people of Mexican hermitage whose
11:33
Speaker 1: family had lived there since before California was even a state.
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Speaker 1: That's just a fact that I felt was worth mentioning
11:44
Speaker 1: for absolutely no reason in this specific episode about American history,
11:48
Speaker 1: which I decided we were going to do this July.
11:50
Speaker 1: For absolutely no reason whatsoever. These groups faced racial segregation,
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Speaker 1: economic exploitation to education, and barriers to employment. Poverty was
12:04
Speaker 1: perpetuated with urban planning policies like redlining. So redlining was
12:11
Speaker 1: like a way of classifying neighborhoods for loans and the like.
12:16
Speaker 1: So it was sort of by financial institutions to be like, oh,
12:20
Speaker 1: this area would be read if it had a medium
12:23
Speaker 1: to large population of minority residents and as such was
12:27
Speaker 1: deemed too risky to loan to those in those addresses.
12:31
Speaker 1: This is like from the nineteen thirties, which this reminds
12:35
Speaker 1: me of like sociology class, Like we have this whole
12:38
Speaker 1: thing about implicit bias, because the first thing they teach
12:42
Speaker 1: you when you go to any like social science whatsoever,
12:45
Speaker 1: is they teach you about bias. How we'll have implicit bias.
12:48
Speaker 1: It's like native to us, and we just as a
12:52
Speaker 1: result of like primary and secondary socialization. At that point,
12:56
Speaker 1: we have to like effectively like it's kind of decolonizing
13:00
Speaker 1: the mind, Like you have to remove yourself and become
13:03
Speaker 1: very aware of why you have that mindset, like why
13:07
Speaker 1: is this your belief system? Why is this you know?
13:12
Speaker 1: Why would you see this area as being a bad area?
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Speaker 1: And I remember my sociology lecture. I remember, I mean
13:20
Speaker 1: apart from him absolutely despising Joss Whedon before it was cool,
13:24
Speaker 1: like he would argue with me about Buffy and all
13:28
Speaker 1: the points he made were actually really valid. But I
13:31
Speaker 1: didn't like him in Selfie my comfort Show, so I
13:34
Speaker 1: had issues. But yes, I still love Buffy as a concept,
13:38
Speaker 1: and I love Sara Michelle Geller and Alison Hadigan and
13:44
Speaker 1: but not not Xander Xander Xander can go jump. But anyway,
13:50
Speaker 1: Josh Wade's self insert character. So my sociology lecturer, he
13:55
Speaker 1: was telling us, I remember for a long time, like
13:57
Speaker 1: when it comes to you know your CV, don't put
14:01
Speaker 1: your age, don't put your address on it, because those
14:04
Speaker 1: two things can lead to bias because they might think
14:09
Speaker 1: either you're too old you or too young, or your
14:13
Speaker 1: address could show that you would be in a like,
14:16
Speaker 1: not good neighborhood, and therefore the assumption would be that
14:19
Speaker 1: you would not be a decent candidate because you came
14:22
Speaker 1: from that area. And so that was something that was
14:25
Speaker 1: brought up like still still in the in the two tents.
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Speaker 1: So this whole redlining situation, this force stagnation in those communities,
14:37
Speaker 1: contributing to wealthy quality segregation, et cetera, because red lightning
14:44
Speaker 1: is financial discrimination based on the perception of your address.
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Speaker 1: Needless to say, these policies systematically segregated these neighborhoods called barrios,
14:56
Speaker 1: which I think is like Spanish for like neighborhood or
14:59
Speaker 1: like town or something. I am fairly certain it is
15:02
Speaker 1: one of those. So they were neglected by city authorities
15:06
Speaker 1: with inadequate infrastructure, lack of services, and shockingly substandard housing.
15:13
Speaker 1: And then we have the schools. The schools that Mexican
15:16
Speaker 1: Americans went to were segregated and they were often overcrowded
15:20
Speaker 1: and underfunded, which just feeds back into that poverty cycle.
15:26
Speaker 1: And the housing was much better. Between discriminatory housing policies
15:31
Speaker 1: and body landlords slash real estate agents, they made it difficult,
15:36
Speaker 1: if not impossible, for Mexican Americans to buy or rent
15:40
Speaker 1: homes in more attractive areas and so like, areas like
15:47
Speaker 1: the Chavez Ravine were predominantly Mexican since the eighteen hundreds.
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Speaker 1: And because of the area, it's a ravine, you know
15:56
Speaker 1: what I mean. So it was actually a lot of
15:58
Speaker 1: the places, a lot of it was still quite rural
16:02
Speaker 1: actually like it was, it wasn't like as built up
16:06
Speaker 1: as that area would be, like where Legian Park isn't now.
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Speaker 1: So you're going to be shocked at this surprise, surprise.
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Speaker 1: Police brutality, racial profiling, and legal discrimination. What I know,
16:24
Speaker 1: thanks to institutionalized racism, they face significantly higher arrest rates
16:29
Speaker 1: the aforementioned police brutality and incarceration than you know, the
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Speaker 1: Anglos would. Basically they were more likely to get harsher
16:39
Speaker 1: punishments for doing less and because the police were targeting
16:43
Speaker 1: Mexican American neighborhoods aggressively, I might add this led to
16:48
Speaker 1: higher rates of harassment of the community and higher arrest rates.
16:53
Speaker 1: If you were focusing on arresting in a minority area,
16:58
Speaker 1: the amount of arrests you were going to have are
17:00
Speaker 1: going to be of minorities like this, Why is the
17:05
Speaker 1: why is the restpants? So? Why where all your cops
17:07
Speaker 1: are there in this area? Are they? Oh? Right? Oh?
17:10
Speaker 1: Why do I keep catching fresh water salmon? I don't know.
17:14
Speaker 1: Because you're in the fucking river, mate. That's why if
17:18
Speaker 1: you want to catch a sea bass, go to the
17:20
Speaker 1: fucking sea, like, oh, because there's more of this here.
17:24
Speaker 1: That's why you're more likely to come across it. Like. So,
17:31
Speaker 1: this was instrumental in shaping the perception of young Mexican
17:35
Speaker 1: people as delinquents, and not just young Mexican people. Right.
17:39
Speaker 1: You also had like the whole Hispanic andlity no communities
17:42
Speaker 1: of the LATINX communities. And I know they are not
17:46
Speaker 1: the same thing, they are sometimes the same. And by
17:50
Speaker 1: that I mean they are in both communities, Like you
17:55
Speaker 1: can be Hispanic and LATINX because you can be a
18:00
Speaker 1: Spanish speaker from Latin America because ha colonization and into
18:04
Speaker 1: your marriage and all of this stuff. So like, yeah,
18:07
Speaker 1: you can be you can be both. And so employment
18:12
Speaker 1: opportunities weren't much better with you've got hard labor, you've
18:17
Speaker 1: got low wages, and you've got limited job options and
18:21
Speaker 1: moving your way up wasn't necessarily always the case, and
18:25
Speaker 1: you would typically earn less than your Anglo counterpart. Right,
18:30
Speaker 1: And there's a whole there's a whole sort of bit
18:33
Speaker 1: of co Many village which I will tell you about sometime,
18:35
Speaker 1: which I haven't talked about because it makes me cry.
18:40
Speaker 1: And so you've got all of these factors contributing to tensions,
18:44
Speaker 1: you know, building up like steam building up in a
18:46
Speaker 1: boiling pop, right, and it comes to a point where
18:49
Speaker 1: the pressure builds up and it's going to need to
18:52
Speaker 1: be released, like it's going to explode because it's just
18:55
Speaker 1: building up. And you've got all of these You've got buying,
19:00
Speaker 1: you've got inherent bias, like and you've got this whole
19:02
Speaker 1: in group outgroup situation where the social, cultural, ethnic group
19:09
Speaker 1: that you belong to. The technical term I hate is
19:14
Speaker 1: called tribalism, and we haven't got a word to replace
19:19
Speaker 1: that yet, but I think we need to figure it
19:21
Speaker 1: the fuck out because group isn't good enough. Somebody was
19:24
Speaker 1: like group and it's like, eh, that's just that's just
19:27
Speaker 1: a thing. We need a specific word to replace it.
19:30
Speaker 1: That isn't so fucking colonial. So basically in your own
19:33
Speaker 1: group that you exist, your social group again, ethnic culture, nationality,
19:39
Speaker 1: however you want to put it, each of those subcultures
19:42
Speaker 1: that you're in. You want to look good in that,
19:46
Speaker 1: and that also means putting others down, like that's that's
19:50
Speaker 1: something that happens. It's not great, but that is like
19:55
Speaker 1: part of it. And you see this a lot when
19:57
Speaker 1: it comes to race tensions, especially especially by colonizing nations.
20:07
Speaker 1: And so when you have this cognitive bias from racial
20:11
Speaker 1: tension and this resentment, it is easy for rumors to spread.
20:18
Speaker 1: Enter zoot suits. These were a style that emerged in
20:21
Speaker 1: like the nineteen thirties when swing dancing exploded onto the scene,
20:26
Speaker 1: and the suits lent themselves to like movement and dance
20:30
Speaker 1: halls with a place to be like all dressed up
20:33
Speaker 1: handbags and glad rags and all like they were doing.
20:37
Speaker 1: I want to say, jive dancing. I don't know any
20:42
Speaker 1: of the dancers. Like I'll watch like strictly Come dancing.
20:45
Speaker 1: I'd be like, ah, what a lovely fox. Drop. Don't
20:49
Speaker 1: know what any of it means other than don't have
20:50
Speaker 1: spaghetti arms, right, and I have no physical capabilities. I
20:56
Speaker 1: do not have rhythm or skill. I'm kind of I
21:00
Speaker 1: take intelligence was the one that missed me and also
21:03
Speaker 1: with my back and everything. But I love I'm obsessed
21:06
Speaker 1: with the Charleston. I love the Charleston. I've seen so
21:08
Speaker 1: many variations of it and in my little fantasy land
21:13
Speaker 1: where if I ever got married, which seriously, I need
21:17
Speaker 1: to get married before my legs stop working. That's all
21:19
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like, that's that's the aim, because I may
21:23
Speaker 1: not have a lot of like skill, but I can
21:26
Speaker 1: aggressively like train myself to learn how to do the routine.
21:31
Speaker 1: Like I don't need to be good at it, right,
21:33
Speaker 1: I just need to not fall when I'm doing it.
21:35
Speaker 1: And you need a partner because it's a two person dance, right.
21:38
Speaker 1: I would love to learn the Charleston and my goal
21:40
Speaker 1: and my little magic fantasy land is if I ever
21:44
Speaker 1: got married, which if anyone does want to marry me,
21:48
Speaker 1: it's probably gonna be for a green card. I'm closer
21:51
Speaker 1: now technically like to becoming a nun than I am
21:56
Speaker 1: to becoming married. Like that's not in a religious way,
21:59
Speaker 1: but like just is a life situation. And it's like
22:04
Speaker 1: I'd love to learn the Charleston and then that will
22:06
Speaker 1: be the wedding dance and be like, what the fuck
22:07
Speaker 1: she's doing the Charleston. I'd be like, yeah, bitch is
22:10
Speaker 1: look at be Gal. That'd be crazy. I got them
22:12
Speaker 1: jazz hands and so the whole thing. Yeah, I have
22:20
Speaker 1: access because I'm a Joel So it was in of
22:21
Speaker 1: the UK and Ireland to both Europe and the UK.
22:25
Speaker 1: So I'm quite attractive as a green curved braid. Anyone
22:30
Speaker 1: need to escape, So yeah, there's there's that. So back
22:34
Speaker 1: back to this and Harlem, the ZiT suit really took flight.
22:38
Speaker 1: So you'd like, you've got the Harlem Renaissance and you've
22:41
Speaker 1: just got oh, just this expression of style and it's
22:46
Speaker 1: inspired by African American comedy jewel shows from the nineteen twenties,
22:50
Speaker 1: oversized suits were all the rage amongst the fashion conscious
22:54
Speaker 1: baggy trousers with tapered cuffs to prevent tripping, because again,
22:58
Speaker 1: how are you supposed to bust them If you're gonna
23:00
Speaker 1: trip over your trousers, tapey your cuffs. So the jackets
23:06
Speaker 1: had wide lapels and pronounced shoulder pads, so they were
23:10
Speaker 1: just like big right, which is also why I think.
23:15
Speaker 1: One of the things that inspired me to do this
23:17
Speaker 1: right now was watching Hamilton, so that the tenure anniversary
23:22
Speaker 1: of the Hamilton performance at the Tony's, it was the
23:26
Speaker 1: Tonies and and Aaron Barr sir. I can't help but
23:32
Speaker 1: I just think Aaron bar should always have done in
23:33
Speaker 1: like a Scottish accent, Matt avan Burr, sir, like he
23:38
Speaker 1: so Aaron Barr he is he's wearing I'm convinced is
23:42
Speaker 1: a soup, but just in black, because like you've got
23:45
Speaker 1: divving Digs, who's dressed like a black panther. Because I
23:47
Speaker 1: was watching on a phone screen, so the first thing
23:49
Speaker 1: I noticed is that brat, and then I noticed the glove.
23:52
Speaker 1: And I have so many opinions about everything that happened
23:55
Speaker 1: on that was very very importantly set up, like they
23:59
Speaker 1: were very specific. They did not fuck around right, So
24:03
Speaker 1: Aaron Barr, he's wearing the ZiT suit, Like what I
24:05
Speaker 1: believe to be is a z its it. I'm thoroughly convinced.
24:08
Speaker 1: And so I'm just obsessed with, like I'm upset on
24:12
Speaker 1: the staging of it. And whenever I'm sad, actually, when
24:15
Speaker 1: i'm feeling low, I will just watch the hamilten performance
24:18
Speaker 1: because it's just so good. It's so good, and so
24:24
Speaker 1: I'll watch it and I'll bring me joy. And I've
24:26
Speaker 1: actually started watching like clips of Debi digs where he
24:30
Speaker 1: started doing like seventy five words in a minute, and
24:35
Speaker 1: because he's very specific about diction and denunciation. And what
24:40
Speaker 1: I've noticed is ever since the issue with my mouth
24:43
Speaker 1: when I was really really sick, like a year and
24:46
Speaker 1: a half ago, when I had to go like the
24:49
Speaker 1: whole story, it's long and boring, but if you've followed
24:52
Speaker 1: me for a while, you know I was really unwell
24:54
Speaker 1: for a long time, and so I was I was
24:59
Speaker 1: dealing with that, and I've noticed that my enunciation and
25:02
Speaker 1: the way that I use my mouth isn't quite the same,
25:06
Speaker 1: and I thought, oh, I want to try and get
25:08
Speaker 1: back on this. So that's a sidebar for you. So
25:12
Speaker 1: Hamilton brings me joy and David Diggs, who I love
25:15
Speaker 1: so much. So zoot suits. They are made lots of fabric,
25:21
Speaker 1: They've got wide lapels. You had like the gold watches,
25:24
Speaker 1: the pocket watches hanging from them, and these were often
25:27
Speaker 1: paired with fedoras or pork pie hats. I actually was
25:33
Speaker 1: very confused because I what I thought was a pork
25:36
Speaker 1: pie hat in my brain is like a lady's little
25:40
Speaker 1: just round hat. But that's not what a pork pie
25:44
Speaker 1: hat is. It's different here and so and so that
25:47
Speaker 1: was an interesting one for me, Like that was a
25:49
Speaker 1: cultural difference. So I don't think about hats as well.
25:54
Speaker 1: It used to be a social norm for men to
25:57
Speaker 1: wear hats, and I don't know why hats when I style.
26:00
Speaker 1: But like it's a shame that we can't just have
26:03
Speaker 1: less clothes, says me with my ever expanding wardrobe. But
26:07
Speaker 1: it's a shame we can't have like less clothes and
26:09
Speaker 1: more hats, you know, bring back hats. So for me,
26:15
Speaker 1: like the whole vibe, it's very much like dandyism was
26:20
Speaker 1: in the eighteenth century to well, actually black dandyism today
26:24
Speaker 1: like which is a very vibrant, very it's so beautiful, right.
26:29
Speaker 1: I love that like joy and esthetic because it's not
26:34
Speaker 1: just a style, it's a vibe, but it is actually
26:37
Speaker 1: a vibe though like it is, it is a vibe.
26:40
Speaker 1: It's it's these events they would host and they would
26:44
Speaker 1: just be unapologetically themselves. And it's wonderful to see because
26:49
Speaker 1: it's kind of like a response to what is seen
26:54
Speaker 1: as traditional masculinity, which isn't even that traditional, like in
26:59
Speaker 1: the grand ski of things, it's not. It's a manufactured
27:02
Speaker 1: concept of masculinity in order to perpetuate the patriarchy and
27:08
Speaker 1: the misogyny that we are forced to live in because
27:10
Speaker 1: everyone is a victim of the patriarchy, because men and
27:15
Speaker 1: women and everyone in between are out with even are
27:19
Speaker 1: affected by it. And if you don't fall within this
27:23
Speaker 1: masculine norm, which is like what Johnny Bravo, Johnny Bravo
27:29
Speaker 1: obsessively combed his hair like he was into grooming. He
27:32
Speaker 1: was very clean, but he was also a big, chunky
27:35
Speaker 1: himbal man, you know, but he would be seen as
27:38
Speaker 1: quite masculine. And it's this fucking Andrew Tait who just
27:46
Speaker 1: looks like if somebody skinned a more rat and then
27:51
Speaker 1: gave it a podcast like I just cannot. I cannot.
27:55
Speaker 1: It's like that is just an oxygen thief of a human.
28:01
Speaker 1: But anyway, like the Congo subculture and things like that,
28:07
Speaker 1: it's just very a beautiful celebration of what I would
28:10
Speaker 1: call masculinity. You know. Zootsuits were a form of expression,
28:16
Speaker 1: and they were worn by like the big jazz players
28:19
Speaker 1: like Cab Calloway. I love Cab Callaway. The zootsuits were
28:24
Speaker 1: like a response to the bleakness of the Great Depression
28:27
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties, and so African Americans they start
28:32
Speaker 1: the zutsuit trend, and this like swells over into other
28:35
Speaker 1: marginalized communities and ethnic groups. So you have like Italian, Filipino, Japanese,
28:42
Speaker 1: and of course Mexican Americans, Ok. And it was the
28:47
Speaker 1: youths who really leaned into this style. Many from the
28:50
Speaker 1: barrios had grown up children of two worlds, so you
28:53
Speaker 1: had like the Mexican tradition of their parents and the
28:58
Speaker 1: America that they were living in. You know, it was
29:02
Speaker 1: surrounding them, and so they were kind of balancing between
29:06
Speaker 1: and they were finding who they were. And I keep
29:10
Speaker 1: saying youths because it wasn't really until the nineteen fifties
29:14
Speaker 1: that we like properly labeled teenagers and we saw them
29:18
Speaker 1: as their own group because you basically went from child
29:22
Speaker 1: to adult. There was no midway. And now we've realized
29:27
Speaker 1: that adolescence, that sort of teenage years, it's like an
29:31
Speaker 1: important step, like right in the middle, because that's when
29:33
Speaker 1: the hormones come in. Okay, that's when shit changes. And
29:37
Speaker 1: with these youths, like most things that young people were,
29:41
Speaker 1: they were put down by older generations and lad people,
29:46
Speaker 1: the anglaws. But yeah, like older people especially seem to
29:51
Speaker 1: have an issue when any trend becomes a thing, like
29:54
Speaker 1: any subculture that exists, like you know, punk, goth emo, rockabilly, twee,
30:02
Speaker 1: cottage core, grunge, dandyism, flapples the bright young things, and
30:09
Speaker 1: any style which bucks the cultural norm is seen as
30:13
Speaker 1: less than Like do you remember if there were hoodies?
30:16
Speaker 1: So when I was in college, one of the times
30:20
Speaker 1: there was this whole thing about hoodies and how if
30:23
Speaker 1: someone wore a hoodie they were more likely to be
30:26
Speaker 1: a criminal. It was associating criminality with an item of clothing,
30:30
Speaker 1: and a lot of young people wore hoodies, like but
30:34
Speaker 1: specifically a lot of black and ethnic minorities wore hoodies.
30:41
Speaker 1: So like, especially in like Ireland and the UK, the
30:44
Speaker 1: people that were wearing hoodies were people who were ethnic minorities.
30:48
Speaker 1: It wasn't worn by like it's now a normal thing
30:52
Speaker 1: and everybody wears them because it's like sports gear. But
30:54
Speaker 1: like for a long time it was seen as like
30:56
Speaker 1: the uniform of of like young thugs, you know, and
31:03
Speaker 1: zoot suits were linked to rebellion and cultural identity, so
31:09
Speaker 1: it was like as well, so what you've got is
31:11
Speaker 1: you've got a minority group, yeah, which is like Mexican Americans,
31:15
Speaker 1: and then within that you have another minority group. So
31:20
Speaker 1: it's like a turtle on the back of another turtle.
31:25
Speaker 1: It's like a subculture within this minority group. But that's
31:31
Speaker 1: not what people complained about out loud. Oh no, no, no, no,
31:35
Speaker 1: no no. The very real issue was using too much fabric.
31:40
Speaker 1: Sure Jan the War Production Board tried to restrict the
31:44
Speaker 1: selling of zut suits because they were worried about rationing
31:47
Speaker 1: silk and will I'm sorry they were worried about will
31:54
Speaker 1: did they think they were going to run out of sheep?
31:58
Speaker 1: Here's the thing about rationing drew wartime like it was
32:01
Speaker 1: a thing but not everything needed to be rationed, Like,
32:07
Speaker 1: some of it was legit, but this is the propaganda
32:10
Speaker 1: for you. Some of it was legit, but some of
32:13
Speaker 1: it wasn't actually needed, but the government rationed it anyway
32:17
Speaker 1: to present the need to ration in order to support
32:20
Speaker 1: the war effort. So it was basically trying to force
32:23
Speaker 1: everybody to conform in order to prove that they supported,
32:28
Speaker 1: you know, the war effort and the troops and all
32:30
Speaker 1: this stuff. And so the oversized zut suits were perceived
32:35
Speaker 1: by affluent anglos as the attire of gang members, thugs
32:40
Speaker 1: and juvenile delinquents. Oh no, the young people in their style,
32:44
Speaker 1: what are we gonna do? What are we gonna do?
32:46
Speaker 1: They're snapping their fingers ad met. So things are already tense,
32:51
Speaker 1: but there's a war going on, and most of the
32:54
Speaker 1: able bodied men are enlisting. To be fair, not just enlisting.
32:59
Speaker 1: Many were, and because so many men were being pulled
33:02
Speaker 1: into the military, able bodied men were being pulled into
33:05
Speaker 1: the military, sectors of the population ended up in employment
33:09
Speaker 1: that they would not have had access to it before.
33:12
Speaker 1: For example, women, even though they had obviously opportunities in
33:16
Speaker 1: the First World War, they were sort of pushed back
33:21
Speaker 1: into like the homemaker role, and then when World War
33:25
Speaker 1: Two came out, they got thrust back into industry again.
33:29
Speaker 1: So they were working and like in areas that they
33:32
Speaker 1: would not necessarily have had the opportunity to work in previously,
33:37
Speaker 1: and so naturally there was a lack of workers. There
33:40
Speaker 1: was a lack of workers needed in many, many sectors,
33:44
Speaker 1: and so the US government initiated programs to recruit workers.
33:48
Speaker 1: The government initiated programs to recruit workers because one of
33:54
Speaker 1: the places that was really suffering was agriculture. The US
33:59
Speaker 1: governed made a deal with Mexico to bring workers into
34:03
Speaker 1: the US because they didn't have enough workers. They did
34:08
Speaker 1: not have enough men to work in agriculture, to work
34:13
Speaker 1: in the fields, to you know, to share the damn
34:16
Speaker 1: sheep that you need the will for you know what
34:18
Speaker 1: I mean, to grow, to harvest, to do all this
34:21
Speaker 1: backbreaking work, to make hay and silage and feed for cattle,
34:27
Speaker 1: and you know all this jazz. Right. Unsurprisingly, white people
34:34
Speaker 1: weren't happy with this influx of Mexican workers, and of
34:37
Speaker 1: course this did nothing to aise the racial tension and
34:40
Speaker 1: animosity to combat this, like, because they were so mad
34:46
Speaker 1: that these people were coming over to help. There was
34:52
Speaker 1: a massive push to get white teenagers to work in
34:55
Speaker 1: the fields, and there's this huge equipment drive to show
35:00
Speaker 1: them Hispanics those baths, like they literally bust in white
35:04
Speaker 1: teenagers from like all over. But here's the fun fact.
35:10
Speaker 1: Not one of these boys lasted more than a day
35:14
Speaker 1: and a half because of just how hard the labor was.
35:18
Speaker 1: They thought they were going to have an easy ride.
35:20
Speaker 1: They were gonna go out, they were gonna work in
35:22
Speaker 1: a field. You know, Bob's your uncle, Fanish, your aunt.
35:27
Speaker 1: But no, no, no, no, no, they could not handle it.
35:31
Speaker 1: And so like there was no choice but to have
35:34
Speaker 1: all of these agricultural workers brought it. And so you've
35:38
Speaker 1: got this country which is basically at war like within
35:42
Speaker 1: and out with itself. And it's like you've got these
35:47
Speaker 1: non white communities who are already wrestling with inequality, segregation,
35:51
Speaker 1: racial prejudice, and a perceived competition for jobs, like that's
35:57
Speaker 1: already there. It's a fucking powder keg. And on top
36:01
Speaker 1: of this, there was the belief that zoot suitors were
36:04
Speaker 1: draft dodgers, which is wild when you think of just
36:08
Speaker 1: how many Mexican Americans enlisted in the military, like a
36:11
Speaker 1: disproportionate amount. Lest we forget one of the biggest like
36:18
Speaker 1: reasons of equipment, like why people join the army is
36:22
Speaker 1: because of the benefits you get, because of what you
36:25
Speaker 1: get paid. You get dental like you. Poverty feeds the military, Okay,
36:33
Speaker 1: that's that's what it does. So there are quite a
36:36
Speaker 1: lot of like Hispanic men in the army, right, they're there.
36:41
Speaker 1: They're fighting with you, you know. And most Zoo suitors
36:47
Speaker 1: were not eligible to join because they were too young.
36:51
Speaker 1: They were not old enough to enlist. They were not
36:54
Speaker 1: old enough to be drafted. They're just young. Okay, they
36:59
Speaker 1: couldn't join if they tried. You can't dodge the draft
37:05
Speaker 1: if you were legally too young to be drafted. And
37:16
Speaker 1: this brings us to our catalyst, the Sleepy Lagoon murder.
37:20
Speaker 1: On the second of August nineteen forty two, there's this
37:24
Speaker 1: reservoir in Maywood by the Illy River, and it was
37:28
Speaker 1: called Sleepy Lagoon, and it was where all the young'ins
37:30
Speaker 1: would hang out. And so there was a party followed
37:34
Speaker 1: by an altercation, and in the morning, Hosey Giado Diaz
37:41
Speaker 1: was found crumpled on the ground, unconscious, bruised and bloody.
37:48
Speaker 1: He was taken to the hospital but succumbed to his entries.
37:51
Speaker 1: His autopsy showed that he had alcohol in his system,
37:55
Speaker 1: like and enough alcohol to be drunk like, he was
37:59
Speaker 1: in toxic headed and they could not determine a cause
38:05
Speaker 1: of death because he had blunt head trauma and multiple
38:10
Speaker 1: stab wounds. And they came up with two theories. One
38:15
Speaker 1: that it was just a violent attack. It was a
38:18
Speaker 1: fight that went wrong and he got stabbed and he
38:21
Speaker 1: got beaten. And the other theory is that again another
38:27
Speaker 1: alter occasion where he was stabbed, but that he was
38:31
Speaker 1: also thrown out of an automobile, which would have resulted
38:35
Speaker 1: in the head trauma. Like. They had two ideas, but
38:39
Speaker 1: they didn't have anything definite. So the cops be copping
38:45
Speaker 1: and they arrest Henley Levaz and twenty something members of
38:49
Speaker 1: what they called the thirty eighth Street Gang for the
38:52
Speaker 1: alleged murder of Jose Giadro Diaz. And so there was
39:00
Speaker 1: this like concern that these were like Pachuco rival gangs.
39:08
Speaker 1: Pachuco is like just a word for these like young
39:12
Speaker 1: Hispanic like groups, and the media pushes for action against
39:19
Speaker 1: zutsuters and eight days later, thanks to Governor Colbert Olsen.
39:27
Speaker 1: He sanctions a crackdown and the Ela police round up
39:33
Speaker 1: six hundred Latino and Hispanic people, men and women, charges
39:39
Speaker 1: them with a variety of offenses, from suspicion of armed robbery, assault,
39:44
Speaker 1: and to other violent crimes. Like because they're rounding like
39:50
Speaker 1: so many members of these communities, like families just start
39:54
Speaker 1: putting out curfews or like don't go up past this time,
39:57
Speaker 1: get back home, because they're genuinely worried about, you know,
40:01
Speaker 1: this racial prejudice and how it is affecting their families.
40:08
Speaker 1: So the trial itself is presided over by George Charles
40:12
Speaker 1: William Frickey, known as San Quentin Frickey because of just
40:18
Speaker 1: how often he sentenced people there. So twenty two youths
40:23
Speaker 1: were arrested, seventeen were indicted, and they were all between
40:28
Speaker 1: the ages of fourteen and twenty two. And the whole trial,
40:34
Speaker 1: the whole trial spoilers, is a miscarriage of justice. I
40:39
Speaker 1: know you're shocked. You're shocked at this trial in the
40:42
Speaker 1: nineteen forties against these Hispanic youths. What Yes, the DA
40:48
Speaker 1: demanded that the defense wear zootsuits so that you know
40:54
Speaker 1: they would be recognizable, and so Fricky refused to let
40:59
Speaker 1: them go themselves, so they weren't allowed to get a haircut,
41:03
Speaker 1: they weren't allowed to have clean clothes, and so they
41:08
Speaker 1: were presented to their jury right, and they basically wore
41:14
Speaker 1: the same clothes for the entirety of the time that
41:17
Speaker 1: they were presented. So they're getting more dirty and disheveled
41:21
Speaker 1: as the trail continues in order for them to be
41:25
Speaker 1: perceived in a way that was well less than optimum.
41:33
Speaker 1: And remember as well, this was a subculture that took
41:38
Speaker 1: pride in their appearance. So this was a double pronged attack.
41:42
Speaker 1: So not only are they looking sort of more disgruntled
41:47
Speaker 1: or more disheveled, sorry for the jury, but it's also
41:54
Speaker 1: like a way of kicking them when they're down, because
41:57
Speaker 1: they really took pride in how they looked because that
42:00
Speaker 1: was very much part of their cultural identity or their
42:06
Speaker 1: subcultural identity, if you will. And the core room is small.
42:12
Speaker 1: There are seventeen defendants, so anytime the devents tried to
42:17
Speaker 1: confer with their clients, the judge ruled that it was disruptive.
42:23
Speaker 1: And so they're trying to like like he's trying to
42:27
Speaker 1: talk to his clients. But they're teenagers, and they're being
42:29
Speaker 1: teenagers because like one of the dudes or a few
42:32
Speaker 1: of them actually had never met the victim, and so
42:35
Speaker 1: they're like, I didn't do it. There's no way I'm
42:38
Speaker 1: going to get like done for this whatever. So here's
42:42
Speaker 1: the thing. The judge allows, and I'm going to use
42:46
Speaker 1: the terminlessly an expert witness to come in and speak
42:52
Speaker 1: a Duran ares the chief foreign Relations, the chief of
42:58
Speaker 1: Foreign Relations, Bureau of Law, Los Angeles Sheriff's office. He
43:02
Speaker 1: testified that Mexicans had a bloodthirst and a biological predisposition
43:09
Speaker 1: to criminal violence. Phrenology. Are we back to phrenology? What
43:20
Speaker 1: the prosecution? So, they tried to get these gals from
43:23
Speaker 1: the thirty eighth Street area to testify against the boys,
43:28
Speaker 1: but they said whatever. The nineteen forty Spanish slang is
43:31
Speaker 1: for oink motherfuckers. Effectively, they said fuck this for GEMI soldiers,
43:38
Speaker 1: and by that I mean they politely declined to acquiesce
43:41
Speaker 1: with their request. So because they refused to cooperate afterwards,
43:49
Speaker 1: what happened is they were forcibly removed from their parents'
43:52
Speaker 1: custody and detained in reform schools. So they were actually
43:57
Speaker 1: taken to the Ventura School for Girls, and they did
44:01
Speaker 1: not leave until they were adults. Like, they were not
44:05
Speaker 1: allowed to leave because they refused to testify against these boys.
44:13
Speaker 1: So the guys on trial, they're facing an all white jury.
44:18
Speaker 1: These young men again, some of them who had never
44:21
Speaker 1: even met the victim, were just like sometimes like rolling
44:26
Speaker 1: their eyes, Like, I mean, I rolled my eyes too.
44:29
Speaker 1: If somebody was like, you have a genetic predisposition for murder, Like,
44:35
Speaker 1: what the fuck, dude, are you're an expert? Are you
44:38
Speaker 1: of foreign relations? No? Simply no, sir. The trail lasted
44:46
Speaker 1: until January of nineteen forty three. Five of the fellas
44:50
Speaker 1: are acquitted and because they're like deemed as guilty of assault,
44:58
Speaker 1: but Ismail Pera, Henry Inostrova, Gus Zamora, Jack Melendez, Victor Thompson,
45:10
Speaker 1: Manuel Rees, Angel Padilla, Robert Tells, Manuel Delgado, John Mattoos,
45:17
Speaker 1: and Jose roots Ruis were convicted. I'm sorry if I
45:22
Speaker 1: buggered up those names, but I wanted to make sure
45:24
Speaker 1: I said them like, I wanted to say their names
45:27
Speaker 1: because I think that's important, and I did my best.
45:30
Speaker 1: I don't speak Spanish, I tried a panic to one us,
45:35
Speaker 1: I was like, what do sound does the z make?
45:37
Speaker 1: I've forgotten the sound of the z oh. So the
45:42
Speaker 1: trial and the media circus surrounding it just stoked these
45:47
Speaker 1: racial tensions as it basically scapegoaded these teens as the
45:52
Speaker 1: cause of social ills and crimes. The convictions were overturned
45:57
Speaker 1: two years later thanks to the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee,
46:00
Speaker 1: but the charges were never fully dropped, like, never formally cleared,
46:05
Speaker 1: so the murder was still unsolved to this day. And
46:10
Speaker 1: also in addition, furthermore, most of the men involved in
46:16
Speaker 1: the trial were still in prison when the Zootsuit riots happened.
46:23
Speaker 1: And so remember those six hundred Mexican Americans rounded up,
46:28
Speaker 1: mainly Mexican Americans. They also had trials in January, and
46:34
Speaker 1: there were like so many convictions were handed down and
46:39
Speaker 1: what many called sham proceedings. I mean, if you're going
46:44
Speaker 1: to arrest and try and convict like six hundred people, like, yeah,
46:49
Speaker 1: there's no way you can do that in a reasonable
46:53
Speaker 1: and ethical manner, Like that's just not possible, Like that's
46:58
Speaker 1: not a thing. And so because they were convicted of
47:03
Speaker 1: this crime, like it just added another layer onto it.
47:08
Speaker 1: Along with all of these people. So you've got all
47:11
Speaker 1: of these members of a minority community and they're being
47:15
Speaker 1: convicted on these trumped up charges along with this group
47:20
Speaker 1: of young men who are also part of the community,
47:23
Speaker 1: who are being convicted of something they did not do,
47:29
Speaker 1: and it just focuses like news outlets and reports and
47:33
Speaker 1: media like on them in showing them as delinquents, the
47:38
Speaker 1: bad guys, the root cause of the problem as opposed
47:42
Speaker 1: to many other factors, you know. So I'm going to
47:48
Speaker 1: like circle back to zo suits for a second. So
47:53
Speaker 1: with the rationing, I'd mentioned this before. With the rationing
47:56
Speaker 1: and the Wartime Productions Board, they limited the use of
48:00
Speaker 1: will in March nineteen forty two, and it also banned
48:04
Speaker 1: like extra design elements that required extra fabrics, including pocket flaps, plates, cuffs,
48:11
Speaker 1: and vests, and so the oversized suitsuits with their extra
48:16
Speaker 1: fabric large lapels, well, and they were sort of they
48:22
Speaker 1: were not really optimum because of how much extra fabric
48:26
Speaker 1: they used. So it was a bit of an issue,
48:29
Speaker 1: and so tailors worked around this by making the suits
48:33
Speaker 1: from other fabrics. They were like, that's okay, we'll use
48:36
Speaker 1: something else. In October nineteen forty two, the Wartime Productions
48:42
Speaker 1: Board banned those fabrics as well, and so it became
48:47
Speaker 1: illegal to make a zoot suit, but not to wear one.
48:52
Speaker 1: But the La tailors and probably other tailors too did
48:57
Speaker 1: it anyway, and now the city of La It did
49:02
Speaker 1: consider banning zoots it all together, but ultimately it did not,
49:09
Speaker 1: which brings me to like President Franklin D. Roosevelt and
49:14
Speaker 1: his Good Neighbor Policy, which its whole purpose was to
49:20
Speaker 1: improve US relations with Latin America. And so news outlets
49:25
Speaker 1: and media stopped using the word Mexican and crime reporting,
49:30
Speaker 1: choosing instead to use terms like zoot suited thugs. Remember
49:37
Speaker 1: what I said earlier about the hoodies, It's like, oh,
49:42
Speaker 1: a hood he did this, and a HOODI did that.
49:44
Speaker 1: It's like okay, so yeah, it would use terms like that,
49:50
Speaker 1: and that would mean like zoot suited thug was just
49:53
Speaker 1: a way of going Mexican delinquent, Like that's what that was.
49:58
Speaker 1: And so every time that they used the term like
50:01
Speaker 1: zutzured thugs, they may as well have just written Mexican
50:07
Speaker 1: and all caps and underlined like this furthered the stereotype
50:13
Speaker 1: that Mexican American youths were criminals gangsters and zut suits
50:18
Speaker 1: and reinforcing that connection between clothing and crime, like the hoodie. Okay,
50:29
Speaker 1: like the hoodie because of the connection between like clothing
50:42
Speaker 1: and criminality. So these zut suits were sort of like, oh,
50:47
Speaker 1: a mobster in a pinstripe suit, you know what I mean,
50:50
Speaker 1: are like a zut suit and a gangster. And the
50:55
Speaker 1: ELI Times referred to the zut sits as the uniform
51:01
Speaker 1: of delinquency. However, speaking of uniforms, there was a fuck
51:09
Speaker 1: ton of service members of the US military in LA
51:12
Speaker 1: at any one time. Some would be on shore leave,
51:16
Speaker 1: others preparing to deploy, others were passing through, or they
51:21
Speaker 1: were training at the Naval Marine Corps Reserve Center in
51:25
Speaker 1: Chavez Ravine, which was less we forget any, predominantly Mexican
51:32
Speaker 1: part of LA at the time, and so at weekends
51:36
Speaker 1: the numbers of the numbers of servicemen could swell to
51:41
Speaker 1: around fifty thousand military personnel in the city. And a
51:46
Speaker 1: lot of these fellas they saw zoot suitors as unpatriotic, like,
51:54
Speaker 1: you know, because all of that fabric might you weren't
51:56
Speaker 1: getting it for the war effort. And also the wearing
52:01
Speaker 1: of the zu suit became like a political act, and
52:05
Speaker 1: like wearing a zutsuit could be seen as an act
52:08
Speaker 1: of rebellion. So this layered with the belief that these,
52:13
Speaker 1: you know, Mexican Hispanic Latino youths, were draft dodgers and
52:20
Speaker 1: these fellas they were personally offended by their very presence,
52:27
Speaker 1: like the fact that they existed was annoying them. And
52:31
Speaker 1: because of this, skirmishes between Mexican civilian youth and service
52:36
Speaker 1: members was a common occurrence by late nineteen forty two,
52:41
Speaker 1: and it was like a tip for tat right, So
52:44
Speaker 1: one fight would lead to the next one, and like
52:47
Speaker 1: I'd have to get back to this person, they would
52:49
Speaker 1: get back at you, and yadi, YadA, YadA, And it
52:52
Speaker 1: goes from like one fight per week recorded right, And
52:57
Speaker 1: here's a thing. Anytime one thing is report, did you
53:02
Speaker 1: have to assume that if it happens once, right, it'll
53:05
Speaker 1: happen another time. And so this goes from like one
53:10
Speaker 1: a week to two to three fights per day, which
53:16
Speaker 1: brings us to May thirty first, nineteen forty three. Eleven
53:21
Speaker 1: or so uniformed servicemen and a group of underage Mexican
53:27
Speaker 1: Americans clashed, resulting in one sailor having his job broken,
53:35
Speaker 1: and so the Anglo serviceman will not too happy with that,
53:40
Speaker 1: and in retaliation, on the third of June, about fifty
53:46
Speaker 1: Ish sailors from the Naval Marine Corps Reserve Center in Chavezervine,
53:51
Speaker 1: they marched through downtown LA carrying clubs and a bunch
53:55
Speaker 1: of other makeshift weapons, like they maguivered some weapons, and
54:02
Speaker 1: they were looking for a fight, and they attacked anyone
54:06
Speaker 1: wearing a zoot suit or anything deemed as and I quote,
54:11
Speaker 1: racially identifiable clothing. The following day, a Friday, June fourth,
54:21
Speaker 1: sailors hired cabs to take them to the barrios specifically.
54:29
Speaker 1: So these military personnel, let's just get this right, Like,
54:35
Speaker 1: let's get this straight. These military personnel deliberately entered civilian neighborhoods,
54:45
Speaker 1: seeking out minority youths to attack during an active war.
54:52
Speaker 1: So there's a war going on and they're doing this.
54:55
Speaker 1: I just okay. They attacked anyone vaguely Hispanic. Five victims
55:03
Speaker 1: were hospitalized and by the time the police in Shore
55:05
Speaker 1: Patrol arrived, most of the sailors had returned to base.
55:11
Speaker 1: So who did they arrest, that's right, victims, victims of
55:16
Speaker 1: the crime. The next evening on the fifth of June,
55:22
Speaker 1: it's the same bit, bigger, and it spreads further into
55:26
Speaker 1: East Los Angeles. And mainly these attacks they targeted men,
55:33
Speaker 1: especially pachucos or anyone they believed to be a petruco.
55:39
Speaker 1: They even attacked a group of musicians like as they
55:43
Speaker 1: were leaving as tech recording company, like they were leaving
55:47
Speaker 1: and they got attacked. By the seventh of June, there's
55:55
Speaker 1: this unsubstantiated rumor that zut sUAS were planning a co
55:59
Speaker 1: war donated attempt to attack the police. Gonna I'm gonna
56:07
Speaker 1: be gentle when I say this. There is no evidence anywhere,
56:14
Speaker 1: in any way, in any consideration, any whisper of a
56:17
Speaker 1: possibility that the zoot suiting youth We're going to coordinate
56:26
Speaker 1: and attack on police. That wasn't going to happen. That
56:30
Speaker 1: was not part of it. So the media, they are
56:36
Speaker 1: just they are lapping this up and they are going
56:39
Speaker 1: hell for leather. Some fan the flames stating that zoot
56:44
Speaker 1: suits were attacking servicemen on site. Others reported that the
56:51
Speaker 1: a mob of military personnel were creating carnage in the streets,
56:54
Speaker 1: which is nice. It's nice that somebody was actually reporting
56:57
Speaker 1: the correct thing. And so because of this rimor from
57:02
Speaker 1: the seventh of Gin, servicemen traveled to downtown LA from
57:07
Speaker 1: all over as far as far as San Diego, right,
57:12
Speaker 1: and some taxis furied them in for free. And they
57:17
Speaker 1: weren't just attacking the barriers, which are mainly the Mexican
57:21
Speaker 1: American population but also predominantly black neighborhoods. US servicemen attacked
57:29
Speaker 1: youths in zoot suits, beat them. Sometimes they stripped them
57:34
Speaker 1: naked and then set fire to their suits in front
57:37
Speaker 1: of them. They destroyed their clothes, they cut their hair,
57:42
Speaker 1: and and like they're just they're just causing chaos, right
57:49
Speaker 1: they are. They even attacked a black defense worker, so
57:54
Speaker 1: someone who was mildy personnel, someone who was on their
57:58
Speaker 1: fucking site, part of their team. Right. I know there's
58:01
Speaker 1: racial prejudice in the army, specially at this time, but
58:04
Speaker 1: this guy on their team, and what do they do.
58:08
Speaker 1: They gouge out one of his eyes with a knife.
58:12
Speaker 1: Anglo sailors right, attack a brother in arms, a member
58:18
Speaker 1: of their same military force. They are pulling people out
58:24
Speaker 1: of movie theaters to attack them in the streets. Black
58:28
Speaker 1: people Mexican Filipino like all i'd say indiscriminately attacked, but
58:34
Speaker 1: this is very much discriminately attacked. And the police what
58:41
Speaker 1: did they do? What did they do? Right? When it
58:46
Speaker 1: came to the servicemen, they were carted either back to
58:50
Speaker 1: base or dropped off a few blocks away. They didn't
58:53
Speaker 1: like suffer any consequences of this, right, And the youths
59:00
Speaker 1: like the Pucucos or Pucacho's like they were like begging
59:05
Speaker 1: police to arrest them as it was safer to be
59:08
Speaker 1: in jail than on the streets. And then otherwise, like
59:13
Speaker 1: the Mexican American youths that were being arrested generally were
59:17
Speaker 1: victims of this. And again media was praising the servicemen
59:25
Speaker 1: while vilifying the victims. One such paper said or had
59:32
Speaker 1: the headline, so does land listen from fight with servicemen
59:40
Speaker 1: the eighth of jin The violence mainly stopped because the
59:43
Speaker 1: servicemen were barred from leaving base and downtown La was
59:47
Speaker 1: a no go zone. All the while, the Navy claimed
59:52
Speaker 1: that all the actions of the sailors was in self defense. No, no,
1:00:02
Speaker 1: that is just factually incorrect, because because you're you're starting
1:00:08
Speaker 1: a fight, like if you craft a weapon, right, You
1:00:15
Speaker 1: craft a weapon, You then travel to a location with
1:00:22
Speaker 1: the weapon, pull people out of like the cinema. They're
1:00:27
Speaker 1: at the pictures, they're watching something. You pull them out,
1:00:32
Speaker 1: You beat them, you strip them, you cut their hair. Like,
1:00:38
Speaker 1: how is that self defense? You can't claim self defense
1:00:44
Speaker 1: when you like, attack a mass group of people first.
1:00:50
Speaker 1: You cannot claim self defense when you attack a mass
1:00:57
Speaker 1: group of people first. I feel like this, as a
1:01:00
Speaker 1: general rule is something we should be able to comprehend.
1:01:06
Speaker 1: If you invade somewhere else, you're not being defensive. That
1:01:12
Speaker 1: is attack. That is offense. Okay, these are basic basic
1:01:18
Speaker 1: terms that we should understand. So by the ninth of June,
1:01:23
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles City Council banned the public wearing of
1:01:27
Speaker 1: zut suits and the penalty was fifty days in jail.
1:01:32
Speaker 1: After this, two committees were formed to investigate the cause
1:01:36
Speaker 1: of the riots, an anti American Activities investigation presided over
1:01:42
Speaker 1: by State Senator Jack B. Tenney, the purpose of which
1:01:46
Speaker 1: was to search for evidence of fascist or Nazi instigators.
1:01:52
Speaker 1: They found no evidence of fascist or Nazi instigators, not
1:02:00
Speaker 1: a whisper, not a drip. The other committee was a
1:02:06
Speaker 1: citizens committee ordered by California Governor Earl Warren, which belong
1:02:12
Speaker 1: in George of it said that racism was the cause
1:02:15
Speaker 1: of the outbreaks and violence. That's your Cliffland's version too long,
1:02:20
Speaker 1: didn't read, you know, so that's what they said. And
1:02:24
Speaker 1: the LA Mayor Fletcher Bourne, he was adamant that race
1:02:30
Speaker 1: was not a factor in the riots and the cause
1:02:34
Speaker 1: of the riots. The blame, he said, was solely on
1:02:39
Speaker 1: zoot suitors and juvenile delinquents. Here's the thing, though, here's
1:02:45
Speaker 1: the thing this Citizens Committee report. It showed that juvenile
1:02:51
Speaker 1: delinquency had increased across the board in all ethnic groups,
1:02:56
Speaker 1: but less so and the Mexican American population. Right. It
1:03:04
Speaker 1: basically said that there are factors that lead to crime,
1:03:10
Speaker 1: so inadequate infrastructure, sanitation, substandard housing, lack of recreational facilities,
1:03:19
Speaker 1: places for young people to go and do things from
1:03:21
Speaker 1: like playgrounds to like swimming pools. Yeah, so like when
1:03:26
Speaker 1: you don't have a lot of options or services for
1:03:30
Speaker 1: young people, they were just going to do whatever they can, right,
1:03:34
Speaker 1: That's why so many Irish teenagers used to go ditch drinking.
1:03:37
Speaker 1: And it is exactly what it sounds. You'd go and
1:03:41
Speaker 1: drink in a field, right, you'd probably end up in
1:03:43
Speaker 1: a ditch. Right, What if you end up in a ditch?
1:03:46
Speaker 1: We did, right, because you have literally nothing else to do,
1:03:51
Speaker 1: Like there's there was nothing. Right, you have fields sometimes
1:03:55
Speaker 1: you'd go kil tipping, right. Not a lot happening, right,
1:03:59
Speaker 1: So yeah, they had ideas. The idea is to like
1:04:06
Speaker 1: combat like all these issues like better police training, especially
1:04:12
Speaker 1: those going into minority areas, increase in facilities, ending segregation
1:04:18
Speaker 1: and discrimination. They were like, if you want to reduce crime,
1:04:24
Speaker 1: you don't overfund the police. You invest in community infrastructure.
1:04:33
Speaker 1: I feel like that's something we can still learn from
1:04:36
Speaker 1: today nearly one hundred years later, Like we're getting closed,
1:04:40
Speaker 1: we're like eighty years out. That's the thing. Like you
1:04:45
Speaker 1: need infrastructure, you need services, you need third spaces, right,
1:04:51
Speaker 1: you need third spaces. People need to be able to
1:04:54
Speaker 1: go and do things right and without them, like you
1:04:59
Speaker 1: do grow. If you want to combat crime, you have
1:05:03
Speaker 1: to prevent crime. In order to prevent crime, you have
1:05:05
Speaker 1: to invest in areas, and you have to rebuild community.
1:05:12
Speaker 1: This committee, by the way, did not, for the record,
1:05:17
Speaker 1: investigate the actions of the military personnel who were involved
1:05:23
Speaker 1: in these riots, like maybe investigate them maybe investigate the
1:05:30
Speaker 1: people who instigated the violence. Perhaps no, okay, then, so
1:05:39
Speaker 1: the sleepy the good murder and the zutzuit riots, they
1:05:43
Speaker 1: were actually like a precursor to what's called the Chicano movement,
1:05:46
Speaker 1: which is a civil rights movement, and it's created solidarity
1:05:50
Speaker 1: amongst marginalized communities across the country and led to a
1:05:54
Speaker 1: broader and deeper discussion of racism. The Chocano as well.
1:06:02
Speaker 1: Like it's still exists, it's still a civil rights movement
1:06:04
Speaker 1: that exists today, and they still wear zoot sits like
1:06:09
Speaker 1: it's part of that political expression. I actually think we
1:06:14
Speaker 1: should bring back zoot suits in general. I love zoot suits,
1:06:19
Speaker 1: although with my body shape I look a bit weird
1:06:22
Speaker 1: and a zoot suit now. I actually didn't mention the
1:06:25
Speaker 1: women who wear z out sits because there were there
1:06:27
Speaker 1: were there were, you know, girls and women who wore
1:06:30
Speaker 1: zut sits, and sometimes they would wear them with trousers
1:06:34
Speaker 1: and so they were very like masculine, and which again
1:06:39
Speaker 1: you know, the angles weren't happy with because they saw
1:06:44
Speaker 1: it as like the opposite of like femininity. But then
1:06:48
Speaker 1: you would have like a zoot suit that had a skirt,
1:06:51
Speaker 1: and then it was seen as like horrors like it
1:06:54
Speaker 1: was such, it was such like such a disdain for it.
1:07:00
Speaker 1: No matter what they did, it was such a thing.
1:07:03
Speaker 1: And I have one more not so fun fact for you.
1:07:07
Speaker 1: The Dodger Stadium is situated in the Chabbez Ravine on
1:07:12
Speaker 1: an area that was supposed to be a public housing
1:07:15
Speaker 1: project with the people evicted from the area, the Mexican
1:07:20
Speaker 1: American people, by the way, evicted from the area. They
1:07:24
Speaker 1: were supposed to have like first DIBs of of getting
1:07:27
Speaker 1: a place there once it had been rebuilt. And the
1:07:32
Speaker 1: reason the project fell through was because the allegian Parks
1:07:37
Speaker 1: Heads project, with twenty four thirteen story buildings, one hundred
1:07:42
Speaker 1: and sixty two story townhouses, a college, a school, and
1:07:47
Speaker 1: a playground, was deemed too socialists because having a place
1:07:54
Speaker 1: where everyone can live and thrive is socialist, allegedly because
1:08:03
Speaker 1: people were given the opportunity to live there instead of
1:08:06
Speaker 1: selling it to the highest bidder like okay. What's interesting
1:08:11
Speaker 1: as well is that the Zutsuit riots and the sleepy
1:08:15
Speaker 1: La Good Mudda, which is what everything traces back to,
1:08:18
Speaker 1: like that is the catalyst for this event, is that
1:08:22
Speaker 1: there isn't a lot out there on. It Like typically
1:08:26
Speaker 1: even when there's you know, a miscarriage of justice or
1:08:30
Speaker 1: a big event happens, especially when the people that are
1:08:33
Speaker 1: involved in it, even regarding like ethnic minorities, it's usually
1:08:40
Speaker 1: more spoken about in discussed over time, and even within
1:08:44
Speaker 1: like the historical and true crime communities, it's not really
1:08:49
Speaker 1: and it's interesting and not in a good way that
1:08:54
Speaker 1: that's the case. And that's why one of the reasons
1:08:58
Speaker 1: why I definitely wanted to talk about because I wanted to,
1:09:02
Speaker 1: you know, discuss something that doesn't get discussed that often
1:09:05
Speaker 1: because it bothers me. But next week I do have
1:09:09
Speaker 1: an American woman again, going back to form because you
1:09:13
Speaker 1: all are asking me to talk about more women, and
1:09:15
Speaker 1: I will do my best. But I thought this was
1:09:18
Speaker 1: just an important, important one, especially for right now in
1:09:22
Speaker 1: the land we live in and the world we live
1:09:24
Speaker 1: in specifically. But if you liked my telling of this story,
1:09:30
Speaker 1: feel free to wait and review five stars. If you
1:09:33
Speaker 1: don't want to see anything nice, you can just not
1:09:35
Speaker 1: see anything at all. But Apple podcasts like helps you
1:09:38
Speaker 1: got the charts. If you're reviewing like, it'd be great.
1:09:41
Speaker 1: It would just be good for me, it would be nice.
1:09:43
Speaker 1: I would enjoy it, and I would enjoy the positivity
1:09:47
Speaker 1: to be honest, and so with that it is oh yeah,
1:09:52
Speaker 1: follow me on the socials. But on top of that,
1:09:54
Speaker 1: it's recommendation time, I think, for recommendation for reading Ramping
1:10:03
Speaker 1: Up Rights by Rachel Charlton Daily. It is a bit
1:10:07
Speaker 1: about disability rights by a disabled journalist and author. Rachel
1:10:12
Speaker 1: is amazing. Go get her book. Okay, go buy her book.
1:10:15
Speaker 1: Buy it now for watching. Like I feel like I
1:10:21
Speaker 1: should say Superman because I've heard many many things and
1:10:24
Speaker 1: that it is not subtle. I haven't seen it yet,
1:10:26
Speaker 1: so I feel like I shouldn't actually be recommending it
1:10:29
Speaker 1: to you. Let me see now, Okay. So I just
1:10:31
Speaker 1: googled like Hispanic movies or like Hispanic leads and movies.
1:10:37
Speaker 1: Also like basically I just watch anything with Pedro Pasquale.
1:10:40
Speaker 1: But also I was like, oh, they've remade Father of
1:10:45
Speaker 1: the Bride and I didn't know, like Andy Garcia isn't
1:10:50
Speaker 1: Father of the Bride, Like I haven't seen that. How
1:10:56
Speaker 1: did I miss? This came out? It came out in
1:10:58
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. I'm gonna watch this. I have to
1:11:02
Speaker 1: see this now. I love Father the Bread because I
1:11:05
Speaker 1: love the Originals movies, which is probably I don't know
1:11:09
Speaker 1: if they've aged well, but I'm going to find out.
1:11:12
Speaker 1: And I'm also gonna watch this, so that's something we
1:11:14
Speaker 1: can do as a team. Okay, that and for listening, actually,
1:11:21
Speaker 1: let me see now for listening, Oh my goodness, this
1:11:25
Speaker 1: is not a recommendation. This is actually an anti recommendation.
1:11:28
Speaker 1: So I was I was having a little nose here,
1:11:32
Speaker 1: you know, even the Royals, because sometimes you know there'll
1:11:34
Speaker 1: be something that I'll want to hear about or someone.
1:11:38
Speaker 1: And as I was scrolling because I haven't listened to
1:11:40
Speaker 1: them in like for yolks, and they had a two
1:11:44
Speaker 1: part on Grace O'Malley, not Gronomalley, the Irish pirate queen.
1:11:50
Speaker 1: Apparently partly they couldn't get her name right. Apparently they
1:11:55
Speaker 1: can give everybody else the right name, but they can't
1:11:57
Speaker 1: give it to Gronia for some reason. And I've done
1:12:00
Speaker 1: ads for them before, like I've had a host red
1:12:03
Speaker 1: ad on this, like for even the Royals, and now
1:12:08
Speaker 1: that's not happening again. So if you ever hear my
1:12:11
Speaker 1: voice talking about even the Royals, please know that that's
1:12:15
Speaker 1: old and not new, because I will not be involved
1:12:20
Speaker 1: in that like I I mean, I simply cannot to
1:12:23
Speaker 1: be honest, like I can't. I just can't be in
1:12:26
Speaker 1: it because I know it's such a weird line in
1:12:29
Speaker 1: the sand for some people. But it's her fucking name,
1:12:34
Speaker 1: Like call her by her name. It's not that hard.
1:12:37
Speaker 1: It's not hard. Right. If someone again like earlier on,
1:12:43
Speaker 1: was struggling to pronounce things, you give it a go, right.
1:12:47
Speaker 1: If you still bugger it up in the end, you
1:12:49
Speaker 1: did your best, which I think is kind of like
1:12:51
Speaker 1: the important part. Like if you can say yawn, you
1:12:54
Speaker 1: can say gron like it's not it's not gone, damn it.
1:12:57
Speaker 1: So let me give you someone who who does know
1:13:01
Speaker 1: what she's doing. You're gonna listen to the Lovely, Amazing,
1:13:05
Speaker 1: fabulous TK from For the Love of History podcast because
1:13:11
Speaker 1: she pronounced his names correctly, or she gives it a
1:13:14
Speaker 1: good college try. Okay, she does her best, you know what.
1:13:18
Speaker 1: So that that's my recommendations. And with that, I better
1:13:22
Speaker 1: go before I get to stress. So ah, with that,
1:13:27
Speaker 1: I shall bid you good day. Arios au Revoir of
1:13:32
Speaker 1: Who Is Them? My friends, bye bye.