This Weekend: 50th Chicano Moratorium Committee Supports the 80th Commemoration of The “Sleepy Lagoon Trial & Zoot Suit Riots” (LA, Calif. 1942-1943)

The history of racism, discrimination, and disgusting violence on Mexican/Chicano youth in L.A., and other cities in the U.S. during the 1930’s & 40’s civil rights period, was overtly exhibited in Los Angeles culminating in a racist trial and anti-Mexican riots, 80 years ago on June 3, 2023.

The Sleepy Lagoon case broke on August 1, 1942, when 22 Mexican/Chicano youth, 17 males & 5 females, were arrested and indicted for the alleged murder of Jose Diaz in the largest mass trial in history. The LAPD police conducted raids throughout the city following the murder, carrying out the mass arrest of 300 “known” pachucos, regardless of their having any direct connection to the events that day. The death of Diaz occurred in a small barrio located in the vicinity of the Sleepy Lagoon Reservoir beside the L.A. River, at a family party conflict, and retaliation on a small group of partygoers, which resulted in Diaz’ demise.

After a three-month trial, 17 of the youth were found guilty and convicted on charges ranging from first-degree murder to assault. Twelve of the boys, ranging from 16 to 22, were convicted of murder and sent to San Quentin Prison. The remaining five saw their charges reduced to assault and they were sent to the L.A. County jail. Five young women present at the scene refused to testify against their peers and were sent to the Ventura School for “wayward” girls. While the males ultimately had their charges dropped on appeal, the young women, ranging in age from 16 to 20, did not. Lorena Encinas, Frances Silva, Josephine & Juanita Gonzales, and Dora Barrios were forced to languish behind bars until they reached twenty-one years of age.

During the 1930’s, the Mexican/Latin population organized a civil rights movement, which was led by the Congress of Spanish Speaking Peoples (El Congreso, founded in April 1939) with combative fights for labor and civil rights. The leaders in the period included Josefina Fierro, Luisa Moreno, Bert Corona, Eduardo Quevedo, Carey McWilliams, and many organizers in the labor movement united to combat racism, police brutality, and discrimination in jobs & housing. With the advent of World War II and U.S. racist policies towards the Japanese, Mexicans, Blacks, and Chinese, El Congreso organized against police brutality and killings in L.A., leading up to the Sleepy Lagoon case. El Congreso leaders joined in the “Sleepy Lagoon” defense committee, with Bert Corona as the LA-CIO liaison from the ILWU, replaced by Luisa Moreno after Bert joined the military. The early war years intensified the combustible mixture that led the local and state government, the media, the police, and the FBI to socially/politically categorize Mexicans as a threat.

By 1942-43, the Anglo population of Los Angeles had developed through several waves of migration with a component of the 2.6 million whites coming from the Midwest and South during the 1930’s to work in the expanding manufacturing and defense industries. Nativism ran strong among whites in Southern California, to the extent that many Angelenos openly supported the Ku Klux Klan. Tensions increased even more as at least seven million soldiers and sailors, with many from the US South, were moved to the West Coast in anticipation of war in the Pacific. Large contingents of sailors were packed into naval bases and stations in Los Angeles and San Diego, putting them into already populated areas, where they interacted and moved through the same spaces as the civilian population. The white migrants had entered a welcoming city layout in which housing and employment segregation was already established to ensure white dominance, while media outlets re-enforced public denigrations of Mexicans.

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The visibility of youth through their clothing, cars, and assertiveness, permeated into social spaces long exclusive to “whites only”, which was deemed problematic by law enforcement, the media, and the government. Under the inflated urgency of war, the normalized racism that underpinned the structures of racial segregation was intensified and unleashed against this segment of the Mexican working class. Racial animosity culminated in an outbreak of violence on June 3, 1943, as white sailors, police, and Anglo civilians attacked Mexicans in the streets of Los Angeles for 10 straight days. Orchestrated attacks on Mexicans (and Black, Filipino, Jewish, and Italian zoot-suiters) then spread to San Diego, Oakland, Delano, San Jose, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, and New York City (known as the Zoot Suit Riots in the U.S.A.).

When the sailors began to attack Mexicans, with L.A. Times and Hearst’s L.A. Examiner news promoting allegations that Mexican youth were assaulting sailors and white women, the local establishment encouraged the rampage. For 10 days gangs of sailors were allowed to leave their bases to clear the streets of Mexican pachucos. They roved through the downtown areas and into the Mexican barrios, accosting and beating any Mexican they encountered. Black and Asian youth were also targeted, pulled off trolley cars, dragged out of storefronts and movie theaters to be beaten and stripped of their clothes in public. Police joined the servicemen, arrested the victims, and imprisoned an estimated six hundred Mexican youth, but not the sailors, over the course of the 10 days. It eventually required the President to order the high military command to restrict servicemembers to their bases. The L.A City Council organized a session on June 9th that year to formally announce a “ban” on the zoot suit, which did not pass.

Other Mexicans were more vocal, as college students in Mexico City organized a solidarity protest against racism of Mexicans in the US and formed a Committee for the Defense of Mexicans Abroad (Comite de Defensa de los Mexicanos de Afuera) and pressured the Mexican government for their lack of “patriotism.” At the forefront of the campaign were the families of the victims and Spanish speaking Mexican radicals with roots in the communities, who did the leg work for outreach. Activists and labor organizers such as Bert Corona, Frank Corona, Lupe Leyvas, and Margaret Telles informed people in and out of the Mexican community about the central issue of the Sleepy Lagoon case and the denial of legal justice to the accused.

The current generation of social & politically minded activist/leaders express a prideful memory in the culture of zoot suit heritage, as commemorations are presented to never forget the tragedies and injustices of the past and to honor our ancestors that have persevered racism. We are the new generation that continues the fight against hate & racism and it is with great honor that we join the 80th commemoration on June 3, 2023, and declare “Justicia para Todos”. (Sources/references: “Radicals in The Barrio”, Justin Akers Chacon; Haymarket Books – 2018)