Sleepy Lagoon Reservoir and the Zoot Suit Riot

In the early 1940s, this site was home to a popular community swimming hole known as Sleepy Lagoon. On August 2, 1942, the body of José Gallardo Díaz’s was found at this location and Los Angeles Police Department quickly arrested seventeen Mexican-American youths, despite a lack of evidence that Diaz's death was the result of murder or hard evidence tying these young men to the alleged crime. This event, and the tension surrounding the LAPD’s action, led to the Zoot Suit uprisings the following year. After twelve of the seventeen Mexican-American young men arrested were convicted of second degree murder, the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee (SLDC) was organized and supported a movement to assure fair trials. They later worked to have the young men released from prison on appeal, arguing that court's finding that they were “Mexican and dangerous” was not satisfactory evidence for their sentences. The SLDC provided an example of intersectional solidarity among oppressed groups, as prominent Mexican-Americans, Angelinos, African Americans, unions, and celebrities all participated in the defense committee’s work. The trial showed what many Mexican-Americans already knew at the time; the LAPD associated Mexican-Americans with gangsters and criminality. The already-active fear of young zoot-suit-clad minority men grew after the conviction, and in response, white men including members of the military who were training in the area also came to assume criminality. After a series of violent attacks by white men on young Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles, more Mexican American youth began wearing Zoot Suits to appear that they were part of a group rather than appear as a vulnerable target. Other led efforts to protect their friends and neighborhoods. The LAPD allowed these uprisings to continue without rest for more than a week before attempting to put a stop to the violence, partially by outlawing zoot suits.

Sleepy Lagoon, a significant location leading to the eruption of the Zoot Suit Riots, which were termed a “riot,” but was not actually such, represents mounting violence and extreme tension between the LAPD, non-immigrant Americans, and Mexican-American immigrants – many of them “zoot suit” wearers – in Los Angeles in the 1940s. The events that occurred at Sleepy Lagoon reflected a compounding of race tension in Southern California, and increasing pressure on the LAPD to protect white Angelenos from the perceived threat of Mexican-American immigrants as they migrated to Los Angeles in large numbers. 

The “threat” was, in part, perpetuated by then-governor Cuthbert L. Olson – who feared the effects of Mexican-American delinquency. Seemingly, Olson used Diaz’s murder to spur the LAPD into action against zoot-suiter youth. The sentiment employed by Olson is seen as significant, as it started the city government and the police’s actions against the Mexican-American community on a broad level, which trickled into social tension on the ground level. The “threat” was also perpetuated by popular media outlets and tabloids – like The Science News-Letter’s description of the “Zoot-Suit Epidemic.” This sourcing describes Mexican-American immigrant groups in terms reminiscent of gang affiliation, saying “The scientists have...observed trends toward disturbance of the establishment they enter, and of immediate cohesion when attacked, toward violence and destruction on a large scale and toward the provocation of closed fights with local boys, bouncers and police.” This hints at the violent connection that existed between zoot-suiters and the LAPD, and the apparent fear-mongering efforts in place to increase public discomfort with immigrant populations and their common appearances. This is evident in the reference to “scientists” to support the claim mentioned, likely in an attempt to appeal to the 1940s public’s sense of ethos. This language can be connected to other nomenclature used when describing the relationship between the “public,” the LAPD, and Mexican-American immigrants to illuminate the issue of unfair and unrepresentative treatment of those immigrant groups at the hands of the LAPD, in the name of protecting an increasingly weary non-Mexican public, which contributed to the events that occurred at Sleepy Lagoon. 

Richard Griswold Del Castillo identifies the sensationalism of mass media as a factor contributing to the social tension that was present in Los Angeles at the time. As hysteria mounted, the LAPD performed sweeping arrests, which made the front cover of the Los Angeles Times without fail. Accordingly, this characterization speaks to a theme of Mexican-American prejudice and perceived gangsterism. The news outlets benefitted from this behavior by selling newspapers with headlines that referred to race danger, and they functioned in a system that wanted to perpetuate this fear, as if all of the social problems at play in Los Angeles at the time could easily be blamed on the influx of Mexican immigration.

The fear-mongering tactics used in the media to increase the anti-Mexican sentiment that manifested itself in violence during the Zoot Suit uprisings seemingly worked, as this prejudice was so strong in Southern California “that Negroes migrating to Los Angeles...found little prejudice left over for them,” according to literature from the year following the event.

The Sleepy Lagoon Uprising was termed the “Pachuco Riots” in Latin American press. This is due to the fact that the “Pachuco” young men, who were identifying with zoot suits and using them to build a community and a culture, were the one same young men who were targeted by military servicemen in Los Angeles in the uprisings themselves. As Del Castillo describes it, this “riot” was one of the first examples of the social and political realities that Chicanos faced in the United States to reach an international audience, thus having an impact beyond 1943.

The culture around the Sleepy Lagoon Trial and the committee that was formed to seek justice for those involved speak to a broader theme of tension between the growing Mexican-American population in Southern California, which is still relevant on some level in the 21st century. The Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee set a historical precedent as a justice-seeking organization, dedicated to reversing the decisions made by the government agencies that systemically broke-down the immigrant groups that inhabited Southern California. Parallelly, the facts that have been collected about this time period and the uprising, and the information that can be gathered from primary media illuminate the social climate at play in Los Angeles in 1942, and the aftermath of the uprising. This location, the event, and the topics that it covers are relevant because they help to explain the history of racial prejudice and the factors that have contributed to that history, and draws upon the rise of grassroots organizing and justice-seeking for oppressed groups in United States history.

Scudder Mekeel, "Concerning Race Prejudice." Phylon (1940-1956) 5, no. 4 (1944): 305-13. Accessed March 15, 2021. doi:10.2307/272030.

"Zoot-Suit Epidemic." The Science News-Letter 43, no. 25 (1943): 388. Accessed February 24, 2021. doi:10.2307/3919495. Carlos Larralde, "Josefina Fierro and the Sleepy Lagoon Crusade, 1942-1945." Southern California Quarterly 92, no. 2 (2010): 117-60. Accessed March 15, 2021. doi:10.2307/41172517.

Elizabeth R. Escobedo, "The Pachuca Panic: Sexual and Cultural Battlegrounds in World War II Los Angeles." Western Historical Quarterly 38, no. 2 (2007): 133-56. Accessed February 24, 2021. doi:10.2307/25443504.

Richard Griswold Del Castillo, "The Los Angeles "Zoot Suit Riots" Revisited: Mexican and Latin American Perspectives." Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 16, no. 2 (2000): 367-91. Accessed February 24, 2021. doi:10.2307/1052202.

Shana Bernstein; Interracial Activism in the Los Angeles Community Service Organization: Linking the World War II and Civil Rights Eras. Pacific Historical Review 1 May 2011; 80 (2): 231–267. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/phr.2011.80.2.231.

Stuart Cosgrove, "The Zoot-Suit and Style Warfare," History Workshop, no. 18 (1984): 77-91. Accessed February 24, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4288588.

"The Rise Of Riots | American Experience | PBS". 2021. Pbs.Org. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/zoot-rise-riots/#:~:text=On%20August%201%2C%201942%20the,romance%20and%20ended%20in%20death.