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Fashion Fights: The Straw Hat and Zoot Suit Riots

Khalid Elhassan February 6, 2025 14 min

Fashion - Still from 1943's 'Stormy Weather', featuring Cab Calloway in a zoot suit — Still from 1943's 'Stormy Weather', featuring Cab Calloway in a zoot suit. Smithsonian Magazine

2. A Non-Existent “Crime Wave” Triggered the Zoot Suit Riots

Fashion - Young Mexican-American zoot suiters in Los Angeles — Young Mexican-American zoot suiters in Los Angeles. Slide Player

The most dramatic backlash against zoots occurred in Los Angeles in June, 1943, in what came to be known as the “Zoot Suit Riots”. In the preceding year, local newspapers had whipped up racial tensions by harping on a non-existent “crime wave”, allegedly caused by Mexican-American youths. Soon, the media was in an uproar, calling for action against “Zoot suiters”. LA’s cops 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 murder of nine young Mexican-Americans, after a controversial trial amidst a wave of anti-Mexican hysteria. The trial had been a travesty, and the convictions were overturned on appeal. However, in the trial’s immediate aftermath, anti-Mexican racism reached a peak. At the time, LA had become a major military hub, with hundreds of thousands of servicemen stationed there or passing through.

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.