Zoot Suits

Several years ago, I discovered and fell in love with Swing music. I don't particularly like Jazz; Swing is slightly different, although it's a subgenre of Jazz. Jazz features improvisation, brass instruments, and a strong rhythm, while Swing relies more on arrangements, woodwinds, and a fast "swinging" rhythm. During this period of loving Swing, I took dance lessons and bought several CDs. One of those CDs included the song "Zoot Suit Riot."

I know what a riot is, but what is a zoot suit and how can it cause a riot?

The April 2016 issue of the Smithsonian magazine answered that nagging question in Alice Gregory's article "Zooting Up". Kathy Peiss, a historian, writes in more detail in her book Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style. And if you happen to live in or travel to LA in the next few months, you can see these suits in person in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibit called "Reigning Men: Fashion in Menswear, 1735-2015."

A zoot suit had shoulder pads that made those of the 80s power suits look tiny. The thigh-length coats also had over-sized lapels, and the suit had peg leg pants, wide at the top and tight at the ankles, apparently to prevent swing-dancing couples from getting tangled up in wide-legged trousers. The forerunners of these suits were called drape suits and were popular in Harlem in the 1930s, but by the 1940s many minority, working-class men around the country were wearing the suits. Many of these men weren't going to department stores or boutiques; these weren't designer suits like those made by Calvin Klein or Brooks Brothers. They were often bought two sizes too large and then tailored to "fit."

During the war years of the early 1940s, everything was rationed, from butter and sugar to fabric. Kathy Peiss writes, "For those without other forms of cultural capital, fashion can be a way of claiming space for yourself." Zoot suits became a way to rebel against the establishment, not unlike Greasers' leather jackets of the 50s or the bra-burning of the 60s. But because fabric was rationed, and because zoot suits used more fabric than was absolutely necessary, men who wore them were seen as unpatriotic.

And that's what led to riots. In 1943 California, Mexican migrant workers clashed with servicemen, who had recently arrived in port to prepare to ship out, in a series of racial attacks. The migrant workers were easy to recognize in their zoot suits. Other racial attacks also appeared in other U.S. cities. Although thousands of servicemen attacked Mexican men simply for wearing the suits, the police were ordered to not arrest the servicemen but instead they arrested more than 500 Latinos, citing vagrancy and rioting.

However, though Los Angeles police officers arrested the victims instead of the attackers, the rest of the country reacted negatively, condemning the servicemen and city officials. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt condemned the riots, saying, "I have been worried for a long time about the Mexican racial situation. It is a problem with roots going a long way back, and we do not always face these problems as we should." The Los Angeles Times responded with an angry op-ed, accusing Mrs. Roosevelt of stirring up racial discord and being a communist. Senator Jack Tenney was even dispatched from Washington to decide whether the riots had communist leanings or had been sponsored by the Axis powers, our enemies in WWII.

The zoot suits gave these men a voice at a time when they didn't have any. Are our times any different? Fashion is a means of personal expression. Hopefully our fashion choices today don't cause riots. But I'm really glad we don't wear the shoulder pads of my youth.