Zoot Suit Riots Essay

Significant contributing factors that led up to the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943 include the Sleepy Lagoon Murder, false News, and the zoot suits themselves. The Sleepy Lagoon Murder took place in 1942 in rural Los Angeles, in what is now Bell, California. Hank Leyvas and his girlfriend Dora Barrios had been assaulted and severely beaten by an enemy neighborhood. The next day, Hank recruited reinforcement and headed over to the Williams ranch to seek revenge. There, Hank and his gang wreaked havoc on an ongoing birthday party, resulting in the death of an innocent boy named José Díaz.

Secondly, we see value in the freedom of artistic expression which Congressman Clay believes is what the U.S. Capital symbolizes. (Warth) Relationships These two values have a Conflicting Relationship. The value of respect for law enforcement led Congressman Hunter to personally remove the art work from the wall. The painting was viewed by Hunter as “not helpful after a year when many police officers had been killed in the line of duty.”

In the mural,"Going to the Olympics" the painter Frank Romero portrays a wide variety of colors in his painting. The first thing I saw in the painting were most obviously the cars passing by with big hearts over them. This means that the drivers loved their cars maybe and loved to drive around Los Angeles. You can also see palm trees and the ocean behind the cars signifying that they're somewhere around Los Angeles where there is water. As we look up at the sky we can see an iron for some reason, a GoodYear Blimp which is quite common in the city of Los Angeles, a horse, and two men wrestling in the sky.

The Zoot Suit Riots reveal that the American society in Los Angeles during the WWII Era was racially discriminated against Mexicans/Mexican Descents because Mexicans/Mexican Descents were known to wear Zoot Suits while zoot suitors were perceived as criminals. During this time, the Zoot Suit Riots occurred causing the “Spanish-speaking community” to be in a hard situation of being excluded from society and their surroundings. Mexicans/Mexican Descents wore Zoot Suits as a trend with the thought that this would help them “fit in” with the American style. Instead, Zoot Suitors end up being viewed as a “bad” image. The sailors would go into the Mexican neighborhoods and harm any Mexican (and Zoot Suit wearers) in sight.

Racial tensions in Los Angeles came into the public eye when a gang of sailors beat up a group of Mexican-Americans wearing “zoot suits” in June of 1943. This led to the mass incarceration of these individuals known as “pachucos”. This initial incident was followed by days of violence in which servicemen roamed the Los Angeles area and physically assaulted any Mexican American they found in zoot suit apparel. The following two nights, the attacks progressed and though a few sailors were arrested while others were warned not to proceed in further assaults, word of the rioting spread and more military personnel from other areas of the city joined in as well. These events were preceded by increased racial tension between Mexican-Americans and Anglo Saxons.

Crime and justice are two common themes that have been presented to English 210. All of the works that have been read in the class relate directly back to crime and justice in America. It is interesting to contemplate why writers are so interested in bringing fourth the topics of crime and justice. Literature is interested in the topics of crime and justice because it has the ability to find a deeper meaning through a story and engage with humanistic themes. Wrongdoing, integrity, and prejudice in America will be proven by taking texts from three works that have been evaluated over the course of English 210, such as poetry, dramas, and novels.

It is a highly [dramatic] form; for every ritual has a moral aspect, expressing, mobilizing social relationships, confining or altering relationships, maintaining a reciprocal and mutual balancing system… It is a means of reaffirming loyalties, testing and changing them or offering new ones to replace old loyalties, always expressed in a kind of muted symbolic display designed to elicit a symbolic response which changes attitudes and values without major and unlimited conflict.” (Cathcart) He draws upon examples such as the Black Panther movement of Oakland and their open carry of weapons around white government officials, as well as the “Catonsville 9” and the burning of draft records as a display of anti-war sentiment.  

This is when the mural became controversial and people began debating whether it was right or wrong of Diego Rivera to do that. The mural included two sides, one displayed capitalism and the other was communism. Rivera drew the capitalism side as the chaotic and violent side. He included Rockerfeller Jr. drinking liquor and being surrounded by women. On the opposite side, he represented the communist side as peaceful and structured.

The public fallout this book received is proof that there is such a thing as bad publicity. Jeanine Cummins celebrated the book's release with two things, a barbed wire nail art, and a barbed wire centerpiece for the tables of her release parties. Barbed wire is a visual of keeping something out, it is created to entrap and harm anyone who passes through, people have died in the wire. Jeanine Cummins and the marketing team for this book believed that barbed wire, a symbol of oppression towards the Hispanic community, should decorate the cover of their book, the nails of its author as a fashion statement, and the centerpieces of a release party. It is disgusting to know how little self-awareness these people grasped as they already create a story that is not theirs to tell, which contributes to silencing the Hispanic communities' stories of immigration and celebrating their accomplishment by flaunting the symbol of oppression as the book's logo.

By the 1940’s Mexicans lived in barrio which were entirely different from white suburban neighborhoods. Parents were worried that their kids ventured away from the barrios. Unlike their parents, who were okay with being excluded from their rights, this newer generation were more rebellious and wanted to challenge norms. The Mexican youth began to start wearing the zoot suit. The zoot suit consisted of big balloon pants, it was inspired by African Americans.

In these protests, students would stand outside of their school with picket signs protesting the racist actions within their schools, as well as calling for freedom of speech and the hiring of Mexican American teachers. These protests by students were one of the first major protests by Mexican Americans against racism and helped greatly to ignite the Chicano Movement. (Muñoz) Rodolfo Gonzales addresses the importance of these youthful students and their actions in his speech with the words “…we need actions such as the ‘blowouts,’ because the youth are not afraid of anything. Because the youth are ready to move. The whole party will be based on the actions of the youth, and the support of the old.”

Zoot Suit Essay When the Constitution was made on September 17, 1787, the first amendment was created to give us freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. The Constitution gave us the right to express ourselves. But, in 1943 the exact opposite happened. Youths in Los Angeles were wearing zoot suits.

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.

On the left side of the wall is a bleak barred window. In 2010, renowned street artist Banksy, whose real identity is unknown, transformed a No Trespassing sign and typical graffiti into a powerful political message rife with symbolism reminding the audience of the historical struggle of the American Indian. As is typical of Banksy’s work, he incorporated the preexisting surroundings into his street art. In fact, several of his other San Francisco

Kaylyn Locklear Dr. Jesse Peters ENG 2200 14 Oct. 2016 A Story of How A Wall Stands Response Essay Simon Ortiz is a Native American storyteller and poet. Through his poetry, he discloses events from the past as well as memories. In his poem, “A Story of How A Wall Stands,” Ortiz discusses a time where his father revealed to him traditions and culture, to create a new appreciation of bits and pieces of history and events that have gained lesser attention in the past.