Alvarez who teaches a class about the 1943 zoot suit riots in los angeles. He describes Race Relations during the world war ii era, and how young people who wore zoot suits came to symbolize a challengey to conventional gendr and racial identities. This is about an hour and a half. All right. So let me just remind you where we are and theve ongoing narrate of mexicanAmerican History. Last week we talked a lot about 1910 l and the mexican revoluti and the dramatic changes that this made for the mexican origin folk on the northern side of te border. This week we areoi going to beg discussion of 1943 as a standin for world war ii. If you recall, at the end of last week, we had been discussing those millionplus mexican migrants who moved north of the border into the United States, many of them, hundreds of thousands of them and their children t settling in the southwestern United States, s california, texas and elsewhere. We discussed their experiences, theirxp trials and tribulations what they lived through in the 1920s and the 1930s and the great depression. I mentioned a couple of times and well bee spending most of today discussing what happened to their children. Those millionplus migrants who brought children with them in the 20s and 30s or who had children who were born asam american citizens and came of age in the 1930s and early 1940s and would become known as the mexicanamerican generation, who would wbecome young adults livg in the United States as the nation went to war during world war iii to defeat hitler, mussolini and the japanese and fascism around j the world. This is whatth well be talking about this week, and i want to remind youou a couple of the bi questions that h we had been tracingv over the last several weeks, not the least of which is who and what is considered mexicanamerican or american more generally. Who is afforded firstclass citizenship in American Society . This changesig with the millionplus migrants and the offspring. It is a dramatic moment and shift in the mexicanAmerican History that well be talking about this week during the 1940s and world war ii in part because if nothing else this moment reminds ushe that there are contradictions, fissures and deep finequities when it comes o who and what is considereded a full member of American Society. One of thehe main arguments and points i want you to take away from todayke and wednesday is tt worldwa war ii highlights these contradictions of American Society and democracy in dramatic, fundamental powerful ways. Not least because we have literally tens of thousands of americans andnd mexicanamerica and nonwhite racialized minorities fighting for american democracy overseas. Theyre fighting on the front lines of europe, and when those soldiers and s sailors return he it would stand to reason that they would expect to be afforded the privileges and benefits of americanit democracy and citizenship. They just spent month, if not years, tours of duty fighting for it overseas, putting themselves and their physical bodies on the line. So it doesnt seem out of the realm. Of reasonable expectatios thatat they would expect firstclass citizenship back on the home front. These contradictions, because, in fact, many were not afforded firstclass citizenship and the conversation weve a been havin about where the boundaries are drawn, who is in and who is out become highlighted when those soldiers andnd sailors return. So these contradictions in wartime democracy, who and what is considered american is one big question i want you to continue wrestling with as we navigate world war ii. The second big point i want you to consider is that the war was not only fought w some place el. There is, many would argue, a war raging on the home front. A war for some of the very same principles that folks were fighting overseas for. A war for american democracy, for firstclass membership and citizenship. Talk mainly about the war on the home front today, and the lens that i want to use to talk about this for the firsthalf of class today is youth culture, popular fashion and more specifically the zoot suit. How many have ever seen or perhaps even worn a zoot suit . Anyone . Where have you seen it or worn it . Where . [ inaudible ] in your class, of course. This is a topic often covered in dock as well as other classes. Anyone else seen or heard of the zoot suit . One of the t things i want you consider about the zoot is that it has a long life. Were going to talk about it in the context of world war ii, but it has reappeared in recent years in the late 90s and the early 2000s when High School Kids were wearing it to prom, when it became the topic of popular fashion in music by the cherry popping daddies and the resurgence in swing music in the late 90s and early 2000s, and jim carey wore it, and when it comes to the zoot, what i want you to remember is, yes, it isa suit of clothes, but a suit of clothes even with its exaggerated style, often flashy colors, it didnt inherently mean anything. The zoot suitol itself, just li the rest of Popular Culture and the worldit that we live garner its meaning from the context in which it was worn. More on this in a few minute, buthi i want to begin by sharin two stories of the zoot suit during world war ii. That i think illustrate the differenti. Racial experiences that came with the zoot suit, and to underscore that it meant Different Things to different folks. The first comesnt t from a very wellknown former zoot suitor by the name of malcolm little. Most of us know him by malcolm x. Anyone read the autobiography of malcolm x . If youou havent this is a crucl and piece of American History that we should all take a look at at someyo point in our lives. Before he became malcolm x, he was malcolm little. This is longg before he was a member of the nation of islam or became an icon of the Civil Rights Movement. Early on in theen pages of his autobiography malcolm little recalls venturing to his Recruitment Office during world war ii and this is in new york and hehe rolls through the fron doors of the armed forces deep owe, quote, costumed like an actor. With my wild zoot suit, i wore my yellow knob tshoes and i wen in skipping and tipping and i scattered my tattered greetings at that reception desk like a soldier. Praise yo, daddyo get me moving, i cant wait to get moving. That soldierda hasnt recovered from me yet. Following this initial encounter malcolmnc gets sent to visit wi the Army Psychiatrist where he tells him, quote, daddyo, now north me were from up here so dont you tell nobody. Iou want to get sent down south organize them nigger soldier, you dig . Steal up some guns and blow crackers,ke and he stared as mes if i were aed snake saying hatching fumbling for his red pencil, i knew i had him, end quote. Soon after this, malcolm gets his 4f card in the mail which basically excuses him in the army draft. Around the same time in the early years of world war ii there is another zoot suitor and one far less known unless youve read myle book then his story i in there. His name is alfred bar ella, a mexicanamerican living in lango a los angeles, and he had balled him out for disturbing the peace. Barrera in his letter argued to the judge that, quote, ever since ir can remember, ive bee pushed around and called names because im a mexican. I was born in this country. Like you trsaid, i should have e same rights, and privileges of other americans. Pretty soon, i guess ill be in the army and ill be glad to go, but i i want to be treated like everybody else. Were tired of being pushed around. Wered. Tired of being told we cant go to this t show or that dance hall because were mexican or that we better not be seen on the beach front or that we cant wear draped pant which is is what Mexican Americans often called the ballooned at the thigh tapered closely at the ankle zoot suit pants or have our haircut the way we want to, end quote. So think about malcolm littles zoots story juxtaposed to alfred barellas zoot story. Malcolm used his zoot suit to alienate himself from the mainstream United States, to evade the endraft, to evade havg to enlist in the armed forces. Barellas comments suggest that his zoot suit style, very different from malcolms did not preclude him from willingly joining the service in an effort to assimilate, and eventually fight for f american democracy overseas. My pointnt is that zoot suitors Mexican American, africanamericans as well as the filipino, japaneseamerican and increasingli numbers of white youth who often wore the zoot suit as the war unfolded, felt differently about theirht style and theirab fashion and that th zoot suit t meant different this to all of them, that the zoot itself professed a wide variety of political views during wartime. Some of them were heavily critical of the war. Heavily critical of the kind of hypocrisy that the contradictions in american democracy meant for mexicanamerican and other nonwhite folks. Barella perhaps saw themselves andes their style in the zoot suit as part and parcel ofwe what we might call a polits of worthiness, that this is my opportunity to demonstrate that i am worthy of full membership in American Society, and i will show you by joining the service. I will show you by being as deeply committed and putting my bodybo on the line for american democracy as anyone else. The zoot, in other words, meant Different Things to different people and i want us to use it as a kind of window into the complicated, contested and shifting world of mexicanamerican identity and ethnicic politics during world r ii. This is my way of saying that it has a lot to teach us, the zoot suit does, about the complex identities, racial experiencesd and. Culture during world war i when it comes toth Mexican Americans. Soing this is where we are toda and for the next hour or so, i want us to use the zoot as a lens to think through who and whatwh is considered american during world war ii because by the end of the next hour i suspect it will be painfully obvious that zoott suitors, Mexican American, black in particular were not considered firstclass citizens. If part of my argument is that the zoot suit garnered its meaning from the context from which it was worn, right . World war ii and that to wear the zoot suit on the streets of los angeles in 1943 meant putting yourself at risk of getting pardon my french, your ass kicked by white sailors soldiers on the streets of los angeles, it didnt mean the same thing. Say in the late 90s or early 2000s when scores of youth were wearing them to prom so we need to think about the hifting shifting Historical Context of world war ii in order to understand fully what the zoot suit meant in that time and place. So lets talk a littleii in or what the zoot suit meant in that time and place. So lets talk a little bit about the shifting context in world war w ii. Well a leave the outline up the asth we make our way through so you can follow along. Worldg. War ii brings massive changes to the american economy, politics and related social and cultural worlds that mexicanamericans again, these young folks who are coming of age ass american citizens in numbers larger than weve seen up to this point in mexicanAmerican History. Asry a number of u. S. Historian most, inst fact, have argued ov the ayears, world war ii helps pull the country as a whole out of the great depression. It lifts the nation from the economicat doldrums of the 1930 that we spent last week talking about. Many women and minorities in particular gained Employment Opportunities during the war. This is, in part, because the u. S. War Industry Needs to produce goods to fuel the war effort and defeat fascism overseas and women and minorities are afforded opportunities that they hadnt been certainly during the depression, butut one could arg even for a a longer stretch of history beforefo then. Labor is needed to fuel wartime production. This is necessaryry to win the war. This leads to massive internal migration. So wevemi just had a million mexican folks and f their childn over the previous two decades move into the u. S. , southwest and elsewhere. During world war ii there were massive internaler migrations a not just for mexicanamericans and africanamericans and others who are seeking to benefit from this employment surge that comes with the war. So black folks leaving the south and settling in war Production Centers like los angeles or san francisco, chicago, and elsewhere around thels country not uncommon. Part of why this is important for us as we will see in a few minutes is that the kind of demographic context in which Mexican Americans find themselves living changes big cities like los angeles where they are now living. These young folks living, going to schoolin with, perhaps worki with on occasion even dating folks that might not be part of Mexican American communities or eve mexicanamerican themselves. Los angeles, in particular, is home to a boom in wartime industry like shipbuilding, aircraft construction, and whether folksft were finding wo as welders or in other sorts of professions working in wartime industry came to be seen as doing d ones patriotic duty. It became a marker of citizenship, of productivity is zensh citizenship so if you werent a sailor or afol soldier, right, next best thing to doing your duty during world war ii was to work in the war industry and in fact, asn ive said, many wome and minorities, not just mexicanamericans did so. Its important to keep in mind, however, thatt there is a Glass Ceiling and many would argue, a really low Glass Ceiling to the kindnd of employment and opportunity that the war offers to nonwhite folks and women. They are often the last hired and the first fired. That is to say, when the war is overer they are often the firsto lose their positions. The kinds of jobs that they were able to accrue during the war were ofteni those with the leas amountnt of social mobility, so they werent able to move up the employment ladder, right . Their jobs were stunted in terms of the kind of growth that they were offered and then after war wasve over, as i said, many of them lost these positions. So we have to take the opportunities of the wartime industry and the limits of those opportunities to mexicanamericans and others together. Its not just one or the other. H so there are big economic changes during the war. If people havee a little bit of extraa money in their pocket tht they may not have had in the 1930s, chances are the reason theyll spend it and one of the ways that young Mexican Americans, amongca others, spen it is on style and fashion and this is part of a kind of up surge inn world war iiera Popular Culture. There is a kind of newfound Economic Freedom that Many Americans pursued and this really helps fuel the growth of pop culture and commodities to newdi heights, so people had mo money to spend and they spent it. They t did so on leisure and entertainment, onn recreation. Theres a dramatic rise in the film and of literature, sports, eccentric club, jazz music, dance halls, right . All of this despite a kind of popular wartime rhetoric in which people are expected in many ways to contribute war effort. To the if part of the argument is what Good American should be doing world war ii, what they should be doing during the war is working to defeat fascism overseas, oneov of the popular ideasla was that they should be investing in war bonds and not in suits of clothes, that the spare money folks should be diverted back into the war effort in some form or fashion. So we have newfound Economic Freedom and opportunity despite itsp Glass Ceiling limits. We have a rise in Popular Culture, andla we also have ongoing and dramatically shifting battles over civil rights. Many mexicanamericans and africanamericans and japaneseamericans particularly after pearlse harbor in decembe 1941 support what was known as the double v campaign. The double vpa campaign was victory abroad against hitler, mous mous mussolini, you cant win abroad without also winning at home. That you couldnt fight for american democracy overseast yo without fighting for equal citizenship on the home front. This became a fundamental and core principle for many mexicanamerican, africanamerican and other fo s folks. There were some successes in civil rights during the war. Franklin delano roosevelt, president during the initial years of world war ii signed executive i order 8802 that band discrimination in the workplace and called for fair Employment Practices and fair housing opportunities. There were also movements against and resistance to civil rights progress. Remember, we have mexicans becoming a larger portion of american urban populations. We have africanamericans migrating internally to big cities across the country and by the time we get to the end of the war and evenhe during the w as it goes on year by year we have black and brown veterans returning to their old lives expecting equality. And there are responses to this, and racism and discrimination and lack of opportunity and the entrenchment, not just of jim crow segregation against africanamericans in the deep south and jim crow and what we might call juan or jaime crow segregation against mexicanamericans in southern ie california, andns elsewhere arod theif country is commonplace. Inco 1946 at the end of the war just to leap ahead for a momen, it shouldnt be surprising that asng veterans are returning and claiming rights and new ways after having fought for american democracy overseas that there i