Talk:Zoot Suit Riots/Archive 1

Archive 1

section

Could someone venture whether

often ripping off their clothing and burning them in the streets.

means that the clothing was burned in the street? Perhaps changing it to

often ripping off their clothing and burning it in the streets.

would prevent someone else from doing a double-take?

I would suggest, "ripping off and burning their clothing" thereby removing the vague pronoun and replacing it with one in the proper position with a proper antecedent. It could also be changed to, "ripping off the suits and burning them" to put an antecedent closer to the pronoun and removing the double pronoun. The riots, after all, are named after the suits themselves.

The Riots In Popular Culture

The riots are mentioned in the 1988 James Ellroy novel The Big Nowhere, is anyone wants to include that info on the page.

Moreover, "The Black Dahlia" by the same author actually features the riots as an event 217.158.231.226 07:57, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Cites

These sentences needs sources. Especially 'convicted of crimes they did not commit'.

Many died in jail from their injuries because they were in dire need of medical attention. Many more were convicted of crimes that they did not commit.

Ashmoo 00:45, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I added source requests for a couple of clauses related to who started the brawl, etc. Aristophanes68 17:10, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Bias

It seems wrong to me that this article should take such a strong stance on culpability without citing any sources at all. It should be more balanced, or cite sources that the Zoot suiters were purely victims here, that they were attacked indisciminately, that many Mexicans died in jail while their attackers were let free, etc. Uucp 19:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

It is on my list. I can't do all the work myself. If you have a library nearby, please help.--Rockero 21:31, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree -- I just read a summary of the incident written by Latino authors that claims that the Mexican Americans did not start the brawl, which I guess leaves the soldiers responsible (the summary also states that the soldiers had entered a barrio, while the Wiki article makes it sound as though the Mexican Americans may have searched out the soldiers. I've also read an article from the NYT in 1943 where the California Governor (Earl Warren) notes that crime among Mexican American youths was less a problem than it was among other ethnic groups. I'll try to find other sources to clarify the events. Aristophanes68 14:16, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree, to my knowledge these were kicked off by marauding sailors looking for "Mexicans to beat up".

I read about the Riots in my high school US History book and all fingers seem to be pointed at the sailors for inciting the riots, and that, my friends, is not a biased look at it. 65.191.159.9 (talk) 04:44, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Disagree; although in the historical context of the time it might seem logical to place all of the blame on the sailors, one must wonder about the prime incendiary incident(s) that caused these events in the first place. It is doubtful that pure blame for the ongoing conflicts can be affixed to either side, and also probable that the initial event(s) were extremely trivial. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.87.82.0 (talk) 05:46, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Firmly Disagree- The riots were a result of a culmination of factors. You should certainly mention the trial of members of the 38th street gang. As I understand it, things began to fire up shortly after all of the boys were summarily convicted with little substantial evidence. This conviction led the Mexican youths to become even more upset and agitated, turning segregationist attitudes into a belief that they needed to protect "Their Neighborhoods". The drunken sailors walking through this Mexican "turf" was just a bad combination. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.90.167.252 (talk) 02:28, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Alright, I am Mexican and I also serve in the Marine Corps. I have notice over several years in the service that alot of bad or disturbing things happen when young service mebers are drunk. I have seen men and women for different branches become hostile and aggressive to thier comrades and to other people unknown to them, and I could only imagine how it was durring a time of racial tension. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.162.128.55 (talk) 12:37, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Disagree; from most of the sources I've read, the sailors were acting out of frustration because of the unpatriotic defiance of rationing guidelines and draft rules. It's not fair, in my opinion, given the historical context, to place ALL of the blame on the servicemen and give the zoot suiters a free pass. Pygmypony (talk) 13:38, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

REDIRECT

Sailor Riots should redirect as the name is becoming increasingly popular due to the servicemen's exceeded participation. - signed by an anon IP

The alternative word "Sailor Riots" instead of calling it the "Zoot Suit Riots" is because the term "Ziot Suiter" is sometimes viewed as disparaging and offensive to Mexican-Americans. But the word isn't as loaded like to call a Mexican-American an "illegal immigrant" simply because he/she is of Mexican descent and can prove they are U.S. citizens. + 71.102.53.48 (talk) 04:53, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Virtually Unknown

I just took the APUSH exam today and everyone doesn't know that this occured. I was the only one out of about 7 people I asked who got it right and I only heard of it because it was on the History Channel. This is really a vague event that should probably get much more attention. Kevin Rutherford 02:28, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Who "started" it?

In the two incidents described in the fourth paragraph of the "Origins" section military personnel were attacked by zoot suit groups rather than military personnel attacking people wearing zoot suits. If these were the incidents that sparked the riots it would seem that the "zoots" started it. In other words, attacks on military personnel caused the riots.

Have researchers documented prior incidents in which groups of military personnel were the aggressors? The article suggests that is the case but documentation (dates, locations, names) would be helpful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.22.47.232 (talk) 12:45, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

According to local newspaper articles of the time, there were something like 50 documented incidents against servicemen in the San Pedro area, by Latino "youths" from December 1942 through March 1943, preceding the riots. This info is online.

As it is, this article is chock full of all kinds of extraneous things that shouldn't be there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by P1340 (talk • contribs) 17:09, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Hello, P1340. I suggest you take out what you want to, one error at a time, to see if anybody reverts it. If not, go to the next mistake and fix it. If it is reverted, you might take your concern to the Discussion Page (this one) and see if there is a meeting of the minds, or maybe some kind of compromise. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 20:08, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Latino or Chicano?

Hello, edit warriors. Might I ask you to discuss this matter here instead of revert warring? I have fully protected the article pending a resolution. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:38, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I fail to see how the term Chicano can be used in an article for an event that occurred in WWII. In the 1940s the term was rarely used and when it was it had negative connotations. There was definitely no "Chicano Culture" in the 1940s as Mexican Americans were then known as Latinos. Chicano became a popular term only in the 1960s and is still largely unrecognised outside America where the term is known mainly from watching U.S. movies and seen as applying mostly to criminal gangs and the culture they live in. Although no longer seen as pejorative in the U.S. the term Chicano remains somewhat pejorative in the rest of the world that still sees Mexican Americans as Latinos. If you go to the dictionary definition for Latino (Encarta U.S. Edition) you find: somebody of Latin American descent who lives in the United States. For Latin American descent the definition is: a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race which obviously applies to the victims of the riots as “Mexican American” is generally used as a catch all phrase meant to include Latin Americans.
For Chicano (same dictionary) you find: a North American man or boy of Mexican descent which does not really apply to the majority of victims as Chicano refers only to Mexican Americans and excludes those descended from other Latin American backgrounds. The definition of Chicano itself also differs between various U.S. Mexican American communities making use of the term if not inappropriate. Wayne (talk) 07:16, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

We Anglo kids in high school at that time called them "pachucos." Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 04:21, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

In popular culture section

No mention of the famous 90s song "Zoot Suit Riot" by...um...that band that was spearheading the (failed) big band revival genre. Yeah I don't remember their name sorry. Not that I give a damn about the song or the band but it's the first thing I think of when I hear the phrase "Zoot Suit Riot" and is the only reason I stopped to read this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.68.140.237 (talk) 20:41, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Done.

Revisionist Nonsense

This article is not fact based. First of all, the notion of a 'Latino' or 'Hispanic' race didn't exist in the 1940s. "Latino" is a very recent term and the census didn't track "Hispanics" as a group distinct from whites until 1980. Hispanics were for the most part regarded as white ethnics and classified as white until relatively recently (people with substantial black ancestry from Latin America were classified as black). This article imposes 21st century concepts of race onto a 1940s era in which they didn't exist. Also, the article claims that "Latinos" were segregated when in fact there was no de jure policy of segregation that restricted where "Latinos" could live. "Latinos" were thought of as white ethnics, not "people of color", until very recently. In the 1940s Mexicans were counted as White in the census, a documented fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CannotFindAName (talk • contribs) 01:59, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

The terminology often comes by after the fact. People in the Stone Age didn't consider them such at the time. Likewise, "African American" is a modern term that is applied to events in the past. How does it affect the article's narrative? tedder (talk) 02:41, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

A better term would be "Anglo". It is neutral, and technically more accurate. 2601:0:4180:7D1:7138:686D:4AA:CE7F (talk) 04:47, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Some "Original Research"

My father took part in what he called the Pachuco Riot. He called the people he battled "Mexicans" and he called his Mexican-American friend who was a sailor on his ship who battled alongside of him "Mexican." My father incidentally was inordinately fond of "Mexicans" due to the ahem social intercourse he had with Latino women in East L.A. at the time. (Jack Kerouac writes about it too.) It wasn't just women; it was the men, too. He liked to visit taverns and restaurants that were serving actual Mexican-Americans when he came to California and Arizona, not places meant for Anglos. He loved them and their culture. Life is weird, eh? When I lived in California almost 50 years later and told him how my father-in-law despised Mexican Americans, he said some pretty insulting things to say about him. He told me that the riots were touched off by Pachucos (who he identified as gang members) who would steal sailors' hats (anyone who has been in the Navy knows that with their strict "uniform of the day" rules, to come back to base out of uniform would result in a captain's mast action; the Pachucos knew it too), try to throw them off the streetcars (a bygone L.A.!), and the fist fights that break out between young men. One ember that helped the spark the riot was rivalry over "Mexican" women. (Charles Bukowski writes how, at the time of the riot, he approved of the pachucos attacking sailors and even killing them. Can't remember which book.) The Navy and Marine Corps brought tens if not hundreds of thousands of horny young men to Southern California who liked to drink, fight and you-know-what. He also told me the admiral controlling the area gave the sailors in San Diego where he was stationed and in the L.A. area a "bell bottom liberty" to go up to L.A. and have it out once and for all. They went to L.A. in their dungarees (without their hats). He said it was a battle royal waged with fists.Shemp Howard, Jr. (talk) 23:04, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

My mother was a student at Roosevelt High in East Los Angeles during WWII. She said that the neighborhood was mixed, with lots of people who moved to the coast so that they could see their sons when the ships came in for Liberty leave in San Pedro. She said that the girls really liked the Pachucos because they were sharp dressers, had cars, and had cash from their jobs. The visiting navvies resented the pachucos getting all the attention! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.215.115.31 (talk) 20:08, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

1943 or 1944?

The opening of the article states that the riots took place in 1944, but it is obvious from the rest of the text, citations etc., that they occured in 1943. Why is this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.199.31.190 (talk) 09:17, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Confusing portion of text?

In the "reactions" section of the article, the following text appears: "At the same time, Mayor Fletcher Bowron came to his own conclusion. The riots, he said, were caused by Mexican juvenile delinquents and by white Southerners, a group arising out of a region in which both overt legal and socially sanctioned white racial discrimination held sway until the 1960s. Racial prejudice, according to Mayor Bowron, was not a factor.[27]" I find this confusing. "The riots, he said, were caused by Mexican juvenile delinquents and by white Southerners, a group arising out of a region in which both overt legal and socially sanctioned white racial discrimination held sway until the 1960s" suggests that racism was a factor. And then "Racial prejudice, according to Mayor Bowron, was not a factor." suggests it is not. It would be good if there was more information on how Mayor Bowron came to his conclusion, I think. Maybe I will take a look myself later. Mr Bucket (talk) 00:52, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Eleanor Roosevelt quote attribution

The article states that she wrote the quote in her newspaper column, but that quote does not appear in the archive of her column available here: https://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hospitalitarian (talk • contribs) 03:36, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

CC BY-4.0 images from 1943

Hi there are a number of images from the Los Angeles Daily News collection in UCLA Library's Digital Collection with a Creative Commons 4.0 license.http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/Search.do?descCvPk=453483 Is there a reason why they're not being used in the article? MassiveEartha (talk) 22:37, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

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Clean this up

1. Where in the citation is this statement? Even with Ctrl-F, I couldn't find this statement: "As long-time residents of California, Latinos occupied many historic areas, and the minority had long been informally segregated and restricted to an area of the city with the oldest, most run-down housing.[6]" However, I did find that the book states that whites were also moving into their neighborhood for more affordable housing. Were people actually restricted to that location?

2. "Job discrimination in Los Angeles forced minorities to work for below-poverty level wages.[7][8]" How were these poor, migrant young impoverished people able to afford these expensive suits and wallet chains? At bootleg prices?

3. As discussed years ago here, the term "Chicanos" was not widely used in publication. The citation for this statement leads nowhere. "During the late 1930s, young Mexican Americans in California, for whom the media usually used the then-derogatory term "Chicanos", created a youth culture.[14] (Long considered a disparaging term in Mexico, the term "Chicano" gradually was later transformed from a class-based term of derision to one of ethnic pride and general usage within Mexican-American communities.)[14][15]" Google shows the term reaching widespread usage in the 1960s: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=7&case_insensitive=on&content=chicano&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cchicano%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BChicano%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bchicano%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BCHICANO%3B%2Cc0

4. The citation does not support this statement: "In the early 1940s, arrests of Mexican-American youths and negative stories in the Los Angeles Times fueled a perception that these pachuco gangs were delinquents who were a threat to the broader community.[16]"

5. The source for this statement concedes that Detroit was not a Zoot Suit riot, nor about youth, nor delinquency. It is the author's opinion that they were somehow related. "By the middle of June, the riots in Los Angeles were declining, but riots against Latinos erupted in other cities in California, as well as in cities in Texas and Arizona. Related incidents broke out in northern cities such as Detroit, New York City, and Philadelphia. In the latter city, two members of Gene Krupa's dance band were beaten up for wearing zoot suit stage costumes. A zoot suit riot at Cooley High School in Detroit, Michigan was initially dismissed as an "adolescent imitation" of the Los Angeles riots. But, within two weeks, the worst race riot in Detroit's history had broken out, in which African Americans were attacked and much of their neighborhood destroyed.[16] Zootsuit7 (talk) 15:59, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Repetition/Slant/Geography

In this article, the incidents from May 31, 1943 onward are told twice by two different authors. Can we combine them into a single account?

Also, the first of the two accounts mentioned above has a clear slant depicting the event as an unprovoked attack by mislead and vengeful white servicemen against law abiding innocent Latinos. While there was clearly racial bias in the events, it should be stated in a way that does not seem to side with one group or the other. We can all agree that these events were a travesty of liberty and freedom perpetrated on the Latino men, but the hostility was brewing from both sides and the events were instigated by action from both sides. Maybe more attention needs to be given to the rising conflict and culture prior to the event to make the situation clear.

Last, Main Street in Los Angeles is not in East L.A, but runs north and south from the downtown area. To place it in East Los Angeles (a primarily poor Latino neighborhood) further fosters the image of white servicemen as interlopers or "not in their own neighborhood", possibly looking for conflict. This creates misinformation and could also foster further bias within th article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.194.169.206 (talk • contribs)

The dynamic IP that keeps adding the biased version is being watched and reverted when it pops up. Chris (クリス • フィッチュ) (talk) 07:12, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Unless there is specific evidence that zoot suiters were seeking fights, then the correct term for violence initiated by one side is "attack" or "assault", not "conflict". - Frankie1969 (talk) 00:35, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

The greatest concern, I believe, is in the two contradictory or confusing accounts given in the "origins" section.

In the first account, on May 31st, Seaman Second Class Joe Dacy Coleman and a group of a dozen soldiers and sailors were involved in an altercation on Main Street [which is in Downtown Los Angeles]. Four days later, on June 3rd, 11 (about a dozen) soldiers exited a bus on Main Street in "East Los Angeles" and had an altercation with young zoot suitors [sic]. The The next day,June 4th,200 members of the U.S. Navy, following the lead of the Vengeance Squad, got a caravan of about 20 taxi cabs and headed for East Los Angeles.

In the second account, the incident involving Seaman Second Class Joe Dacy Coleman is also stated to have occurred on May 31st, but implies that the events involving the 200 sailors in taxis occurred later that evening or as a continuation of the aforementioned event. The event on June 3rd is not repeated at all.

Many other discrepancies arise, such as, was Coleman stabbed or did he fall? or both? Were the events on May 31st and June 3rd separate, or the same incident? Was it 200 sailors, or sailors and marines? Did the (approx.) 15-20% of Latino servicemen involved in the riot also feel that "they were the only group capable of restoring order and white male dominance", or did they enter the altercation on behalf of the "Pachucos"?

I am just thinking that this really needs to be cleaned up to show the events as they happened and to possibly point it out if there are generally accpted controversies or unsettled theories about these events.Cowpunk123 (talk) 19:17, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 January 2019 and 10 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Bschaffer.

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