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ASU professor captures ‘zoot’ culture in book

The decade of the 1940s was a simple time, when the average minimum wage was 43-cents-per-hour, and only half of all U.S. homes had indoor plumbing. Culturally, things weren’t as simple. America was evolving into a diverse country, with citizens becoming more comfortable challenging the status quo.

Eduardo Obregón Pagán, associate professor and chair of the Department of American Studies at ASU’s West campus, explores this significant time in history, when young people across the color line challenged the norms of segregation – and others struck back during the period leading up to the “Zoot Suit Riot.”

In his book, Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon: Zoot Suits, Race, and Riot in Wartime L.A., Pagán examines the 1942 “Sleepy Lagoon” murder trial in Los Angeles that concluded with the conviction of 17 young Mexican American men for the alleged gang slaying of fellow youth Jose Diaz. Just five months later, the so-called Zoot Suit Riot erupted, as white soldiers in the city attacked minority youths and burned their distinctive drapes, which were mistaken for zoot suits.”

“...jazz aficionados wore their hair in a pompadour, which was viewed as a very radical thing to do. It was affront to the ethos of segregation and was one of many things young people did to challenge social norms, running the range from refusing to yield sidewalks in deference to whites to fighting back against those who challenged them.” – Pagán

“In the 1940s there was an unwritten rule that people of color were usually unseen and unheard in public spaces,” Pagán says. “To call attention to yourself really threatened the wrath of white society at the time. Young people wearing jazz fashion in public undermined the norms of segregation by standing out in ways of their own choosing.”

Despite the popularity of zoot suits in the 1940s, Pagán says not everyone owned one. 

“Most Mexican American kids did not have a zoot suit because it was too expensive to own,” says Pagán, of the suits, which averaged $125 in 1940. They mostly wore the ‘Punjab’ pants, and when they bought a suit they bought a “drape” which was the more conservative version of the zoot suit. If you traveled back in time and asked kids in L.A. what they were wearing, they wouldn’t call it a zoot suit. They would have called it a ‘drape.’”

In reconstructing the lives of the murder victim and those accused of the crime, Pagán contends that neither the convictions nor the ensuing riot arose simply from anti-Mexican sentiment. Instead he says that a variety of pre-existing stresses, including demographic pressures, anxiety about nascent youth culture, and the war effort all contributed to the social tension and the eruption of violence.

“During the war, in 1940, the military haircut was very popular among young people,” he says. “But jazz aficionados wore their hair in a pompadour, which was viewed as a very radical thing to do. It was affront to the ethos of segregation and was one of many things young people did to challenge social norms, running the range from refusing to yield sidewalks in deference to whites to fighting back against those who challenged them.

“This street-level revolt against segregation has been overlooked by many historians who have dismissed jazz culture as just a passing trend,” he says, “but it was an important moment in the evolution of the Mexican American community in asserting their rights and their full and equal place in society.”

By Manny Romero

Romero, with Media Relations & Public Information, can be reached at (480) 727-3116 or (mlromero@asu.edu).