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Crime Waves and Savage Fads From History That Were Just Unnatural

Khalid Elhassan June 18, 2020 35 min

17. Mounting Anti-Mexican Racism

Teenagers wearing Zoots in 1942. Aventuras na Historia

In the year preceding the Zoot Suit Riots, Los Angeles newspapers had whipped up racial tensions by harping on a non-existent “crime wave”, allegedly caused by Mexican-American youths. Soon, a media campaign was in full swing, calling for action against “zoot suiters”. LA police responded with frequent roundups and arrests of hundreds of young Mexican-Americans, guilty of nothing more than wearing oversized outfits.

Tensions were further exacerbated by the conviction for the murder of nine young Mexican Americans of murder, following a controversial trial amidst a wave of anti-Mexican-American hysteria. The trial had been a travesty, and the convictions were overturned on appeal, but in the trial’s aftermath, racist hatred against Mexican-Americans reached a peak in LA.

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.