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As the violence escalated over the ensuing days, thousands of servicemen joined the attacks, marching abreast down streets, entering bars and movie houses and assaulting any young Latino males they encountered. Although police accompanied the rioting servicemen they had orders not to arrest any of them. After several days more than 150 people had been injured and police had arrested more than 500 "Latinos" on charges from "rioting" to "vagrancy".

A witness to the attacks, journalist Carey McWilliams described,
"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. Pushing its way into the important motion picture theaters, the mob ordered the management to turn on the house lights and then ran up and down the aisles dragging Mexicans out of their seats. Streetcars were halted while Mexicans, and some Filipinos and Negroes, were jerked from their seats, pushed into the streets and beaten with a sadistic frenzy."

The local press lauded the attacks by the servicemen, describing the assaults as having a "cleansing effect" that were ridding Los Angeles of "miscreants" and "hoodlums". The Los Angeles City Council issued an ordinance banning the wearing of "zoot suits" after Councilman Norris Nelson stated "The zoot suit has become a badge of hoodlumism". Sailors and Marines had initially targeted only pachucos but African-Americans in Zoot Suits were also attacked in the Central Avenue corridor area. This escalation compelled the Navy and Marine Corps command staffs to intervene on June 7, confining sailors and Marines to barracks and declaring Los Angeles as off-limits to all military personnel with enforcement by U.S. Navy Shore Patrol personnel. Their official position remained that their men were acting in self defense.

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA


The Zoot-Suit and Style Warfare
by Stuart Cosgrove
http://invention.smithsonian.org/centerpieces/whole_cloth/u7sf/u7materials/cosgrove.html

Zoot Suit Riot- Cherry Poppin' Daddies
http://www.myspace.com/video/vid/3192900

music related?

Capt Scott wrote:music related?

Well, Jazz-Age subculture.

I don't like segregating art into neat categories. I like the blurry parts. Also, the way real-life influences and is influenced by art. The riots had a ripple effect into rock n' roll, the sixties, the civil rights movement. Malcom X was a former Zooter who had his head bashed in a few times.

You don't have much to do with your time/ any real responsibility, do you?

Capt Scott wrote:You don't have much to do with your time/ any real responsibility, do you?

Man.....shouldn't you be changing diapers or sum-thin? Tell me what goes for a fun time in Flemington, NJ.......I had a girlfriend from there, so you cant lie to me.

Prohibition era music was heavily influenced by the speak easy sub cultures. This as a hard core element that was a whole different class of gangsters. They had Jazz and Rum. Bee Bop and Beer.

This was a huge influence on musicians from the big bands up to Sinatra.