Zoot Suit Riots

Posted by Aaron Sarfati on Jul 19, 2023

The baggy Zoot Suit wasn't always known as a fun time suit meant to be worn to a costume party but has much more serious side to it. People always yearn to be free. There are also people who simply wish to control other people and have a compulsion to tell them what to do. The founding of America was based on the desire of freedom so when a time comes when those in authority tell people what to do, there is going to be trouble. If you go back to the 1940s, World War Two was in full swing and everything was being rationed. From food,household goods,gasoline and fabric as well. The government tried to make a ban on the manufacturing of wearing zoot suits because of the excessive use of fabric needed to make one.


Mexican Americans in southern California started going to their own tailors making a bootleg business of providing zoot suits when you couldn't just go into a suit shop to buy one. Once it was seen that Mexican Americans were not going with the war effort, there started some racial-based conflicts with American servicemen and the Pachucos wearing zoot suits. The following resulted in the Zoot Suit Riots. The Zoot Suit riots started a series of racial profiling and discrimination towards Mexican Americans and also implemented legislation on cracking down on juvenile delinquency. The zoot suit riots did not impede the desire to wear zoot suits but instead made more people want to wear them as a way to rebel against those who the Pachucos felt were trying to control them. Since the zoot suit riots developed a polarization of society between minorities and white servicemen.

It can be said that the riots would show which side stood on which side concerning the war. Whether that is true remains to be seen but anytime you have one group of people against another group based on differences in cultures there is going to be trouble.