By Special to PeoplesWorld.org – PeoplesWorld.org – Image WInter Garden Theatre.
Over the course of five days, beginning on June 3, 1943, simmering racial unease exploded as hundreds of white sailors stationed in Los Angeles stormed into East L.A. and began beating Hispanics in response to an earlier downtown altercation between a few sailors and some street kids. The sailors commandeered a fleet of taxicabs and targeted Zoot Suiters – youths outfitted in the defiant, exaggerated costume of their community (long jackets, high-waisted, wide peg-legged trousers and ankle-length watch chains, plus “duck tail” hairdos), most of them Latino, but also some Blacks, Filipinos, and others. Gangs of sailors marched into movie theaters, bars, and pool halls, and beat up anyone they singled out, stripping them and urinating on – and in some cases burning – their clothes.
