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A West Virginia Town Applied For Soviet Foreign Aid, and Other Lesser Known American History Facts

Khalid Elhassan February 21, 2020 33 min

Vulcan - McDowell County — Vulcan miners in 1919. The Sangha Kommune

13. Servicemen Rampaged Against Mexican-American Teens

Two Mexican-American youths, one stripped of his suit and the other badly beaten, victims of a rampage by servicemen during the Zoot Suit Riots. Associated Press

WWII Los Angeles became a major military hub, with hundreds of thousands of servicemen stationed there or passing through. To many white military personnel, the wearing of Zoot suits was viewed as a public flouting of the war effort. Mexican-Americans came to be seen as unpatriotic – even though they actually served in the military at higher rates than whites. As a group, they also had one of the highest percentages of Medal of Honor recipients. Unfortunately, racism seldom cares about facts.

Rioting erupted in June of 1943, when mobs of white soldiers and sailors roamed that city, beating up allegedly “unpatriotic” Mexican-Americans wearing Zoot suits. While the rioters focused on Latino kids, young African Americans and Filipinos were also targeted. Copycat riots spread throughout California to San Diego and Oakland, then across the country to Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York City. It was the first time in American history that fashion caused literal rioting and widespread civil unrest.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.