At the trial, a sheriff’s captain testified that “the Mexican element” had an innate “desire to use a knife or some lethal weapon. Twenty-two defendants were charged with murder. Police, based on what Solis characterized Tuesday as a shoddy investigation and limited evidence, rounded up nearly 300 suspects, mainly Latino youths, in connection with the slaying. Months before the riots, a young man named José Díaz was stabbed to death near a swimming hole that became known as Sleepy Lagoon in southeast L.A. Racial tensions in Los Angeles were already high, partly due to the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial, at which racist stereotypes of Latino youths were introduced as evidence. Many of the victims were disrobed by their attackers, according to reports from the time.

The young men who were targeted wore wide-legged, high-waisted, pegged trousers and long coats with wide lapels and wide padded shoulders that were part of the zoot suit style. The attacks were incited by men in the military who roamed the streets in uniform, some armed with clubs, looking to start fights with minority youths, known as “pachucos,” who were wearing zoot suits, Solis said. The murder of Jose Diaz in 1942 led to two landmark injustices against Mexican Americans. “And the effort to erase and eliminate never seems to be successful.”Ĭalifornia Column: Sleepy Lagoon, the Zoot Suit riots and the lonely grave in East L.A. whatever the case may be, how it’s frowned upon and quite frankly feared,” Mitchell said. “We’ve seen that repeated over and over in our history, where groups who attempt to express our cultural pride and identity through clothes, music, style, hair. Supervisor Holly Mitchell said people are still being targeted for their attire and culture. Local residents joined the board during the unanimous vote while wearing outfits that resembled the zoot suits favored by many minority youths in Los Angeles in the 1940s. Supervisor Hilda Solis marked the anniversary of the 1943 attacks Tuesday by introducing a motion denouncing the devastation from the riots and recommitting to fighting racial discrimination. Nearly 80 years after the infamous Zoot Suit Riots, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to condemn the violent attacks by racist mobs on Latino, African American and Filipino youths as “one of Los Angeles’ most shameful moments in history.”

Zoot suit and other plays