American Experience, Zoot Suit Riots

Tuesday, March 29, at 9 PM

Repeats Wednesday, March 30, at 2 AM
 

In June 1943, Los Angeles erupted into the worse race riots in the city to date. For 10 straight nights, American sailors armed with makeshift weapons cruised Mexican American neighborhoods in search of “zoot-suiters”—hip, young Mexican teens dressed in baggy pants and long-tailed coats. The military men dragged kids—some as young as 12 years old—out of movie theaters and diners, bars and cafes, tearing the clothes off the young men’s bodies and viciously beating them. Mexican youths aggressively struck back. The fighting intensified and on the worst night, taxi drivers offered free rides to the riot area. One Los Angeles paper even printed a guide on how to “de-zoot” a zoot-suiter. When the violence ended, scores of Mexicans and servicemen were in hospital beds.

“Zoot Suit Riots” is a powerful film that explores the complicated racial tensions and the changing social and political landscape that led up to the explosion in the city’s streets. To understand what happened during those terrifying June nights, the film describes changes in the city’s population—the influx of new immigrants, the booming war-time economy and the huge number of service men on their way to the Pacific theater.