These Maries, soldiers, and sailors strip down any Chicano who was wearing a zoot suit and would publicly humiliate them by having them take their clothes off or beat them. The police department seemed to support and approve of the violence since they did not provide protection to the Chicano youth. In fact, the attacks quickly turned into a riot that lasted for nine days now known as the “ Zoot Suit Riots” (Chiodo 4). The riots were a scapegoat of the subjectivity of power in Mexican American communities. Before the riots, tensions of Mexican-American had a long history in the Los Angeles area. During this time period, Chicana/os had very limited rights and struggled to fit into the status quo provided by the United States. The song “ Pachuco …show more content…
“The United States entered the war in December of 1941, and by 1942, the War Production Board’s first rationing act was implemented to cut back on the use of fabrics, forbidding the manufacture of zoot suits that fell outside the War Production guideless” (Martinez-Cruz, 165). After 10 months pass by, the Sleepy Lagoon indecent took place in August 1942, involving an alleged gang fight and murder at a swimming hole in Los Angele (Ramirez, 385). The Chicano/as youth involved in the trail were faced with a wall of racism and oppression. “ Los Angeles police charged a host of youths with murder, the press coverage and trail were biased against the defendants” (Gilje, 178). In fact, the judge denied the access for the defendants to wash, cut their hair, or change their clothes since it would change their appearance and make them look well thought of instead of looking like gang members. Over six hundredth young men and women were taking into custody, after questioning them, often harshly; the police announced that they had arrested members of the so-called thirty- eighth street gang who were responsible for the murder (Pagan, 3). Since Chicano/as are preserved as second-class citizens, many individuals were trying to create a new