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Ep 228: Pull a comb through your coal black hair - Zoot Suit Riots
Description
Hey Pachuco! It's 1943, and we're in Downtown Los Angeles! LA's population has just grown exponentially - partly with people from Mexico brought into the US specifically to address the labor shortage after all the Japanese Americans were taken into internment camps (not good!) - and partly because the US needs every young man to join the war and there are tens of thousands of 18-20 year old servicemen from a deeply segeragated American South in town.
Tensions are high! The fashion among young Mexican men is the Zoot Suit - oversized jackets, big pants, and lots of flair. It makes them easy targets for racially targeted vigilante groups of servicemen to let off some steam. No white men were arrested; about 600 Mexican (and a handful of other non-white people) were arrested. Surprisingly, nobody died!
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