On the evenings of June 3–June 7, 1943, crowds attacked Mexicans and Negroes in Los Angeles, particularly youths wearing “zoot-suits.” On June 7, a mob of over a thousand soldiers, sailors, and civilians broke into movie theaters, streetcars, and homes, dragged Mexicans into the street and stripped and beat them. During all this time, the police stood by or on occasion arrested the victims.
These riots were touched off by the assault of a group of sailors by a group of Mexican youths; but Southern California had a long history of tension between Mexicans and whites, tensions which had been increased by the press and the police. The Hearst papers, in particular, headlined every incident which reflected badly on Mexicans. When in 1942 the Office of War Information remonstrated with the Hearst publishers, pointing out that Mexico was our ally, the Hearst papers substituted the word “zoot-suiter” for “Mexican.” The word, which referred to elaborate clothes worn by some Mexicans, became a synonym for all young Mexicans.
Much of the city condoned the riot. The Los Angeles County Supervisor told newsmen: “All that is needed to end lawlessness is more of the same action as is being exercised by the servicemen.” The District Attorney proclaimed that “zoot-suits are an open indication of subversive character,” and the Los Angeles City Council made the wearing of zoot-suits a misdemeanor.
The following account of the riot is taken from Carey Mc-Williams: North from Mexico (1949).
The stage was now set for the really serious rioting of June seventh and eighth. Having featured the preliminary rioting as an offensive launched by sailors, soldiers and marines, the press now whipped public opinion into a frenzy by dire warnings that Mexican zoot-suiters planned mass retaliations. To insure a riot, the precise street corners were named at which retaliatory action was expected and the time of the anticipated action was carefully specified. In effect these stories announced a riot and invited public participation. “Zooters Planning to Attack More Servicemen,” headlined the Daily News; “Would jab broken bottlenecks in the faces of their victims.… Beating sailors’ brains out with hammers also on the program.” Concerned for the safety of the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps, the Herald Express warned that “Zooters … would mass 500 strong.”
On Monday evening, June seventh, thousands of Angelenos, in response to twelve hours’ advance notice in the press, turned out for a mass lynching. Marching through the streets of downtown Los Angeles, a mob of several thousand soldiers, sailors, and civilians, proceeded to beat up every zoot-suiter they could find. Pushing its way into the important motion picture theaters, the mob ordered the management to turn on the house lights and then ranged up and down the aisles dragging Mexicans out of their seats. Street cars were halted while Mexicans, and some Filipinos and Negroes, were jerked out of their seats, pushed into the streets, and beaten with sadistic frenzy. If the victims wore zoot-suits, they were stripped of their clothing and left naked or half-naked on the streets, bleeding and bruised. Proceeding down Main Street from First to Twelfth, the mob stopped on the edge of the Negro district. Learning that the Negroes planned a warm reception for them, the mobsters turned back and marched through the Mexican east side spreading panic and terror.
Here is one of numerous eye-witness accounts written by Al Waxman, editor of The Eastside Journal:
At Twelfth and Central I came upon a scene that will long live in my memory. Police were swinging clubs and servicemen were fighting with civilians. Wholesale arrests were being made by the officers.
Four boys came out of a pool hall. They were wearing zoot-suits that have become the symbol of a fighting flag. Police ordered them into arrest cars. One refused. He asked: “Why am I being arrested?” The police officer answered with three swift blows of the night-stick across the boy’s head and he went down. As he sprawled, he was kicked in the face. Police had difficulty loading his body into the vehicle because he was one-legged and wore a wooden limb. Maybe the officer didn’t know he was attacking a cripple.
At the next corner a Mexican mother cried out, “Don’t take my boy, he did nothing. He’s only fifteen years old. Don’t take him.” She was struck across the jaw with a night-stick and almost dropped the two and a half year old baby that was clinging in her arms.…
Rushing back to the east side to make sure that things were quiet here, I came upon a band of servicemen making a systematic tour of East First Street. They had just come out of a cocktail bar where four men were nursing bruises. Three autos loaded with Los Angeles policemen were on the scene but the soldiers were not molested. Farther down the street the men stopped a streetcar, forcing the motorman to open the door and proceeded to inspect the clothing of the male passengers. “We’re looking for zoot-suits to burn,” they shouted. Again the police did not interfere.… Half a block away … I pleaded with the men of the local police sub-station to put a stop to these activities. “It is a matter for the military police,” they said.
Throughout the night the Mexican communities were in the wildest possible turmoil. Scores of Mexican mothers were trying to locate their youngsters and several hundred Mexicans milled around each of the police substations and the Central Jail trying to get word of missing members of their families. Boys came into the police stations saying: “Charge me with vagrancy or anything, but don’t send me out there!” pointing to the streets where other boys, as young as twelve and thirteen years of age, were being beaten and stripped of their clothes. From affidavits which I helped prepare at the time, I should say that not more than half of the victims were actually wearing zoot-suits. A Negro defense worker, wearing a defense-plant identification badge on his workclothes, was taken from a street car and one of his eyes was gouged out with a knife. Huge half-page photographs, showing Mexican boys stripped of their clothes, cowering on the pavements, often bleeding profusely, surrounded by jeering mobs of men and women, appeared in all the Los Angeles newspapers. As Al Waxman most truthfully reported, blood had been “spilled on the streets of the city.”
At midnight on June seventh, the military authorities decided that the local police were completely unable or unwilling to handle the situation, despite the fact that a thousand reserve officers had been called up. The entire downtown area of Los Angeles was then declared “out of bounds” for military personnel. This order immediately slowed down the pace of the rioting. The moment the Military Police and Shore Patrol went into action, the rioting quieted down.