Review of Jazz Owls: A Novel of the Zoot Suit Riots

Review of Jazz Owls: A Novel of the Zoot Suit Riots

By Lettycia Terrones – HBook.com – Photo Not Credited. In 1942 Los Angeles, after working all day at the canneries, teen sisters Lorena and Marisela can’t wait to put on their sharpest swing skirts and high heels for a night of jazz dancing with...
Video: The history of El Paso’s Pachuco culture

Video: The history of El Paso’s Pachuco culture

By ElPaso411.com – Photo Not Credited. We’ve all heard people call El Paso Chucotown or just Chuco.  If you walked down the streets of El Paso, Texas, in 1942, you probably wouldn’t think much of a man wearing an oversized suit and fedora hat. The style was...
Putting On a Zoot Suit

Putting On a Zoot Suit

By Clarissa M. Esguerra – Vestoj.com – Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library. Photo: Joaquin Porras, a zoot suit youth, was held as a robbery suspect on Friday, November 6, 1942. Read...
La Pachuca: Mexican subculture in 1940’s L.A.

La Pachuca: Mexican subculture in 1940’s L.A.

By Maria Rios – MuseumOfTheCity.org – Photo Tumblr Pachuca girls in a police station, 1940s The pachuca/os culture came into the spotlight in the summer of 1942 with the death of José Díaz on Williams ranch in rural Los Angeles, located near reservoirs...
Demian Bichir plays it cool in ‘Zoot Suit’

Demian Bichir plays it cool in ‘Zoot Suit’

By Daryl H. Miller/Contact Reporter – LATimes.com – Photo Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times – He holds out the sleek, black fedora for closer inspection. It is at once reserved and dandyish, with a brim that sweeps up in back into what look like...