That song definitely happened, as did a series of violent episodes committed by members of the United States military, police officers, and civilians in general against groups of young Hispanic men in Los Angeles and surrounding areas of southern California over the summer of 1943.
Let's start at the beginning: What is a Zoot Suit?
Basically, it's a baggy suit. Overly-long coats, baggy pants, popularized during the Harlem Renaissance. Cab Calloway wrote of the Zoot Suit in the Hepster's Dictionary - itself an interesting publication in American history:
The ultimate in clothes. The only totally and truly American civilian suit.
It didn't take long for young African-American men to wear these suits, because their heroes wore them. Soon it spread to young Hispanic men, known as "Pachucos." Well the good white folk of Southern California did not appreciate this at all, at first because they generally didn't (don't?) like any popular fashion worn by their younger counterparts, or minorities. (See: Pants, Sagging)
There was something else, as well. After the United States entered World War II with the attack on Pearl Harbor, the economy mobilized for the war effort. Strict rationing on everything from milk to meat to gasoline was in effect. And yet, black market tailors continued to make Zoot Suits for their clientele. This was seen as a gigantic waste of resources that could go towards helping The Troops.
Tensions between minorities and white Southern California had been building for some time. In February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which allowed for the internment - or forced relocation - of thousands of Japanese-Americans into camps far from Los Angeles and San Francisco. Meanwhile, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans (many of whom had left the United States during the Great Depression) were invited back to the United States, and Los Angeles specifically, under the Bracero Program, to fill vacancies in the workforce due to enlistment after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Second Great Migration brought thousands of African-Americans to Southern California for defense-related jobs as the country mobilized for World War II.
White Southern California was on edge. A special grand jury - headed by Sheriff's Department Captain Edward Duran Ayres - was called by the Los Angeles City Council to investigate "the Mexican Crime Wave." Ayres, to the grand jury:
(Ayres) stated that Mexican Americans are essentially Indians and therefore Orientals or Asians. Throughout history, he declared, the Orientals have shown less regard for human life than have the Europeans. Further, Mexican Americans had inherited their 'naturally violent' tendencies from the Aztecs of Mexico. At one point in his report Ayres suggested that the Mexican would forever retain his wild and violent tendencies no matter how much education or training he might receive.
Well.
On the night of August 1, 1942, 22-year old Jose Gallardo Diaz reluctantly went to a party in Commerce, California, just south of East Los Angeles at the home of the Delgadillo family. Diaz was scheduled to report for induction into the Army the following day. A group of "young people known for trouble" led by Henry Leyvas and some of his friends from 38th Street had come to the party after looking for a rival gang and a fight broke out. The following morning Diaz was found with a fracture at the base of his skull near a popular swimming hole called Sleepy Lagoon (because Mexican-Americans were not allowed to swim in segregated swimming pools) and would later die in the hospital. The official cause of death is unclear, though some reports said his injuries were consistent with that of a car accident. That did not stop the media from howling for justice for the "murdered" Diaz.
On August 10-11 the LAPD conducted a massive sweep and rounded up some 600 people and charged them with various crimes like "suspicion of assault," armed robbery, etc. Every single one had a Spanish surname. Leyvas and 24 others were arrested for the murder of Jose Diaz and tried in what has become known as the Sleepy Lagoon Case or People v. Zamora. They were arrested while wearing zoot suits and were not allowed to change clothes. This is but one of many Issues regarding the trial. 22 of the defendants were tried together, not individually. Oh and they didn't have an attorney. The two defendants who did have an attorney were not allowed to sit with, or talk to, their lawyers. Whenever their names were mentioned in court they were forced to stand up, in order for the jury to see them and associate them with their clothing.
Captain Ayres was called by Judge Charles W. Fricke as an expert witness on the Mexican's innate proclivity towards violence. Ayres:
When the Spaniards conquered Mexico they found an organized society comprised of many tribes of Indians ruled over by the Aztecs who were given over to human sacrifice. Historians record that as many as 30,000 Indians were sacrificed...in one day, their bodies...opened by stone knives and their hearts torn out. This total disregard for human life has always been universal throughout the Americas among the Indian population, which of course is well known to everyone. This Mexican element...knows and feels...a desire to use a knife or some lethal weapon...He desire is to kill, or at least draw blood.
Sooooo many due process issues here.
Even though 17 of the defendants couldn't even be placed at the scene of Diaz's death, the jury was moved by the "testimony" as well as by the press, who referred to the defendants as "Sleepy Lagooners" or simply "The goons." After five months, in January 1943, three were found guilty of first-degree murder, nine were found guilty of second-degree murder, five were found guilty of assault, and five were found not guilty of assault.
The media did not help. In the June 2, 1943 issue of the Los Angeles Times:
Fresh in the memory of Los Angeles is last year's surge of gang violence that made the 'zoot suit' a badge of delinquency. Public indignation seethed as warfare among organized bands of marauders, prowling the streets at night, brought a wave of assaults, [and] finally murders.
In Southern California during WW2 you had Edwards Air Force Base, Fort MacArthur, Reeves Field, Long Beach Naval Shipyard, Long Beach Naval Station, and Los Angeles Air Force Base. You also had the conditions of fear and panic that would lead to the internment of hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans. And yet all these military dudes were in Southern California, not in Germany or in the Pacific. They're ready to fight.
Minorities - most of whom were too young to serve - were targeted for not joining the military.
On May 31, 1943 there was a to-do between uniformed servicemen and some young Mexican-Americans and, this time, a serviceman got the crap kicked out of him. Three nights later - June 3 - 50 servicemen from the Los Angeles Naval Reserve Armory got whatever weapons they could find and went out looking for anyone wearing a Zoot Suit, or any type of ethnically-identifiable clothing. They beat them up, then took their suits. Local law enforcement watched, then arrested the Latinos.
Over the next few days, empowered by their "success," and the apparent backing of the press (particularly the Hearst newspapers) the attacks escalated. Another popular style among young Mexican-Americans was the duck-tail haircut. Mobs of uniformed servicemen, off-duty cops, and just good ol' boys ready for a fight marched through movie theatres, cafes, etc looking for a duck-tail haircut or Zoot Suit, and beat them up. Soon, African-Americans and Filipinos - haircut, suit, or not - took the brunt of the mobs.
By June 7, taxi drivers were offering free rides to servicemen so they could join in. People came to Los Angeles from as far away as San Diego to get in on it. Writer Carey McWilliams:
On Monday evening, June seventh, thousands of Angelenos...turned out for a mass lynching. Marching through the streets of downtown Los Angeles, a mob of several thousand soldiers, sailors, and civilians, proceeded to beat up every zoot-suiter they could find. Street cars were halted while Mexicans, and some Filipinos, and Negroes, were jerked out of their seats, pushed into the streets, and beaten with sadistic frenzy.
One African-American, still wearing his ID badge from the factory job at which he worked, had his eye gouged out with a knife.
How did it play out in the press? Just some good old vigilante justice in response to a violent immigrant-led crime wave (that didn't actually happen). There was an exception, from Al Waxman, editor of the Eastside Journal:
At Twelfth and Central I came upon a scene that will long live in my memory. Police were swinging clubs and servicemen were fighting with civilians. Wholesale arrests were being made by the officers.
Four boys came out of a pool hall. They were wearing the zoot-suits that have become the symbol of a fighting flag. Police ordered them into arrest cars. One refused. He asked: "Why am I being arrested?" The police officer answered with three swift blows of the night-stick across the boy's head and he went down. As he sprawled, he was kicked in the face. Police had difficulty loading his body into the vehicle because he was one-legged and wore a wooden limb. Maybe the officer didn't know he was attacking a cripple.
At the next corner a Mexican mother cried out, "Don't take my boy, he did nothing. He's only fifteen years old. Don't take him." She was struck across the jaw with a night-stick and almost dropped the two and a half year old baby that was clinging in her arms...
Rushing back to the east side to make sure that things were quiet here, I came upon a band of servicemen making a systematic tour of East First Street. They had just come out of a cocktail bar where four men were nursing bruises. Three autos loaded with Los Angeles policemen were on the scene but the soldiers were not molested. Farther down the street the men stopped a streetcar, forcing the motorman to open the door and proceeded to inspect the clothing of the male passengers. "We're looking for zoot-suits to burn," they shouted. Again the police did not interfere....Half a block away...I pleaded with the men of the local police substation to put a stop to these activities. "It is a matter for the military police," they said.
The police practice was to accompany the caravans of soldiers and sailors in police cars, watch the beating, and jail the victims.
Well that's not a good look. Police generally arrested any Latino who fought back. Finally on June 8, U.S. Military banned all military personnel from leaving their barracks - essentially saying that Los Angeles was off-limits, and also banned the wearing of Zoot Suits.
The governor of California, Earl Warren (who would later enforce Mendez v. Westminster, desegregating California schools for Mexican-American students, and even later rule on nationwide desegregation in Brown v. Board of Education) initiated a committee to investigate the riots and recommended punishment for all involved. Other than the charges brought against Mexican-Americans, no one was arrested.
In October 1944 - after two years in prison - the California District Court of Appeals overturned all of the convictions in People v. Zamora on lack of evidence, denial of the defendants' right to counsel and reprimanded Judge Charles W. Fricke for overt bias in the courtroom.
