Zoot Suit By Luis Valdez: Racial Tension

In Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California, Tomas Almaguer (2009) describes how race and racism coincides to facilitate the birth of white supremacy in California during the late nineteenth century. The idea of racial formation allowed groups to establish their power and privilege over defined racial lines. For each of the three racialized groups presented Chapter one combines the historical and sociological framework to describe the transformation of Mexican California. Through highlighting the historical accounts of racialized groups, fear of potential threats to white workers creates white supremacy. He continues by describing the peopling of Anglo-CA from 1848-1900 with the immigration of Irish, German,

The Tulsa Race Riot was the destruction of Black Wall Street in 1921, which was caused by an allegation of a white woman accusing a black man of rape. It lasted from May 31st to June 1st. The Tulsa Race Riot caused plenty of damage from “dozens of deaths [and] hundreds of injuries” to the destruction of Black Wall Street leading to unemployment of the black community (Hoberock n. pag.). An estimated property loss was over $2.3 million. This was an important event in our Nation’s history because “it teaches how far hatred [and violence] can go” (Hoberock n. pag.).

The year 1969 was a year full of extreme racial tension. Race riots had already started, protests were in full swing, and racism was very front and center. Set around this time, in the play “No Saco Nada De La Escuela” by Luis Valdez, there are a group of six kids named Francisco, Moctezuma (Monty), Malcolm, Florence, Abraham, and Esperanza (Hopi), who go to school together, and each experience racism in their own way. Luis Valdez’s “No Saco Nada De La Escuela” highlights different aspects of racism through experiences in the lives of several students as they progress through elementary school, high school, and college.

Many American’s keenly followed the unfolding events of the 1912 “race war’ in Cuba, where, as in the American South, blacks and mulattoes were treated as second class citizens. Given the unrest in Cuba, white Southerners felt validated that the system of formal segregation in the American South was a justifiable concept. Interestingly Washington, some twelve years earlier, in an article entitled "Negro Leaders Have Kept Racial Peace," explained that African Americans had far more “reason to resort to physical violence” yet did not.

We learned that over the last 40 years the police department of the City of Miami and Miami- Dade County have experienced their share of civil disturbances. To illustrate, there have four cases of race riots between both police departments which led to innovation to be involved in their pursuits to better their responses. These were the race riots in 1968, the Liberty City Riot, 1980, the McDuffie Riot, 1982 Luis Alvarez Riots, and 1989 Loranzo Riots within the Liberty City over town areas. However, the article stated that these riots were resulted by either police shooting of young black men, or thanks to the federal government the deporting of a young Cuban boy. Thus, it was not until the civil arrest of the 1980’s McDuffie Riot which seemed

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Or: A Closer Look At The Form and Construction Of Storytelling To The Tune Of The Blues Throughout history, many cultures have passed down stories through oral tradition. Though the manner in which spoken word is delivered has changed over time, the fundamental core of the timeless tradition has stayed the same; Words have power. They can be used to spread joy, hope, and keep entire cultures alive. August Wilson’s play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, focuses on the power of the blues to tell the stories of numerous African-American individuals, as they struggle to find meaning and justice in an unfair society dominated by a hateful majority.

In the past, racial profiling has been used numerous times by police officers and people who thought races other than white were the cause of every case and problem. They thought they were better because they were white and blamed people of other races for committing crimes by judging everyone based off ethnicity. In the play, Zoot Suit by Luis Valdez, Henry and the 38th Street Gang were accused of crimes they have not committed because they were Mexican- American. Today this is still seen society. The play’s messages was that people who were discriminated because they were not white, which is still relevant today.

“No other city north of the border and only one city south of the border was home to more Mexicans” (Lytle Hernández, 2017: Kindle Location 2900-2901). Dr. Lytle Hernández allows us to see through her historical lens as she builds up the city of Los Angeles, allowing me to realise the severity of the racism, disposition, oppression, and unrecognition Latina/os have had to endure in US society by correlating it to the large dark history of incarceration Los Angeles has had throughout the years. Latina/os will never fit the Anglo American view for the “Aryan City of the Sun” and would rather pass laws in order to incriminate and disposition them, not allowing them to fully settle in Los Angeles. By the 1880s many people started to settle west, in search of constructing the perfect city with Anglo-American ideals, something that Latina/os could never be a part of. As an Anglo-American preacher named Bob Shuler once stated on his radio program, “Los Angeles is the last purely Anglo-Saxon city . . .

This story is told to provide the reader with a testament of police brutality. To prove that it is a real thing that happens and that the police officer’s actions were not only unnecessary, but unfair. Danna heavily relies on pathos to appeal to the audience’s

Persecution amongst the rich and the poor had colossal influence in not just The New York Draft Riot of 1863 additionally the Watts uproar of 1992. Bigotry likewise brought on the tragedies that spread all through New York City and Los Angeles. April of 1863, President Lincoln issued a decree calling for 300,000 men, and if your name were called, you were going to battle in the common war unless you had 300 dollars, then you could purchase out of the draft. The Los Angeles uproar was the most noticeably bad mobs in the United States. The uproar was brought about by the absolution of policemen who wrongfully beat an African American man after he was pulled over for speeding.

“You give me a uniform, you give me a number on my back, I'll give you the guts.” Throughout the 2013 film “42”, Jackie Robinson indeed proves that he has the guts to counter racism in people from all walks of life. Character is the aspect of a person that decides what kind of person he is; it is who he is at his very core, and it affects his tolerance, courage, and sense of justice. Jackie’s dealing with the racism conveys true character, and it teaches the viewer how to behave when put to the test. Specifically, “42” exemplifies true character education in that it depicts Jackie Robinson persisting despite the racial prejudice of spectators, the media, and fellow athletes.

Twelve Angry Men is in many ways a love letter to the American legal justice system. We find here eleven men, swayed to conclusions by prejudices, past experience, and short-sightedness, challenged by one man who holds himself and his peers to a higher standard of justice, demanding that this marginalized member of society be given his due process. We see the jurors struggle between the two, seemingly conflicting, purposes of a jury, to punish the guilty and to protect the innocent. It proves, however, that the logic of the American trial-by-jury system does work.

As the saying goes, “Everyone is different,” from the way we think, to the way we act. Between the semi-rough pages of the book In The Heat of The Night by John Ball lies the process of punishing a criminal. The criminal who killed Wells’ very own Maestro Enrico Mantoli who was supposed to lead the city to fame, popularity, and money. However, nothing is harder in capturing the culprit than investigating the case. In a city suffering from a huge wave of racial issues, two opposing teams working on one case is not a very good idea.

In 1943 the suit zoot riots occurred, this is the event where “a mob of U.S. servicemen took to the streets in taxicabs and began attacking Latinos and stripping them of their suits”. In the local papers it was made seem like the racial attacks were a vigilante respond to an immigrant crime wave and police would mostly only arrest the Latinos who fought back. These riots demonstrates how unfair the law enforcement was to the Latinos being attacked and how badly Latinos were treated by their peers. This type of mistreatment and discrimination towards them was not uncommon In the 1900s, in fact latinos were heavily discriminated against in the 1900s.

There are white thugs just as commonly as there are black. Even as it unfolds with a terrible sense of inevitability, “Fruitvale Station” is rarely predictable. The climatic encounter with BART police officers erupts in a mood of vertiginous uncertainty, defusing facile or inflammatory judgments and bending the audience’s emotional horror and moral outrage toward a both necessary and difficult ethical inquiry. How did this happen? How did we – meaning any one of us who might see faces of our own depicted on that screen – allow