It’s All Cyclical: Conflict and Resistance Between Mexican Americans and Servicemembers in Los Angeles, 1943 to Today

By Ava Sanchez

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UPDATE 9/9/25: Read more about the recent 6-3 vote Supreme Court ruling (Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem) on the American Immigration Council’s website: “How the Supreme Court’s Latest Decision Clears the Way for Racial Profiling During Immigration Raids” 

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When I was in college, I would often jump on a Big Blue Bus and head into Downtown Los Angeles. Whether I was dropped off on 5th and Flower or Aliso and Los Angeles, I was always surrounded by energy: people, music, fashion, art, street vendors, entertainers. 

In early June 2025, the city was a ghost town unless you met a pocket of protesters advocating for their fellow Angelenos, flanked by police pushing to contain them. Tensions were high, spirits were low, and voices were loud on all sides. It was eerie to see such a lively city consumed by fear and anger. 

On June 6th, 2025 ICE agents swarmed Los Angeles. 

They knocked on doors, waited outside of schools and churches, and stopped people on their way to work in a federally-mandated effort to deport undocumented Californians. When the response from the city swelled, President Trump deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles in an attempt to quell resistance. News coverage was nonstop, either telling stories of peaceful protestors being brutalized by law enforcement or violent mobs being dutifully subdued by the boys in blue. Firsthand videos on social media brought people around the world into an alternate reality of Los Angeles, one where servicemen and women were suddenly on every corner, looking at Latinos as candidates for deportation rather than integral members of a community that they had built. 

This series of protests is not the first time that servicemembers and Latinos have had a standoff in the streets of Los Angeles – and the media coverage around both events is strikingly similar.

In early June 1943, off-duty soldiers and sailors targeted “every zoot-suiter that they could find” in a five-day long spree of racially motivated violence from white servicemembers against Mexican Americans in Los Angeles, known as “The Zoot Suit Riots.”

The zoot suit was a fashion trend derived from Black dandyism during the Harlem Renaissance – a movement that has remained so influential, it was selected as the focus of the 2025 Met Gala, otherwise known as “fashion’s biggest night.” Historically, dandyism has functioned as a dignified reclamation of power, “[taking] the clothing of an oppressor – aristocratic, colonial, segregationist or otherwise – and [turning] it into a weapon of elegance.” The careful tailoring, exaggerated silhouettes and symbolic resistance characteristic of dandyism spread like wildfire. The zoot suit was popularized across communities of color, taking hold among Mexican and Filipino American communities in Los Angeles. 

Zoot suits became symbols of the Pachuco culture – a movement dedicated to celebrating Chicano culture and defying discriminatory ideals – which originated among Mexican Americans in U.S. border towns to push back against targeted racial violence and oppressive policies levied against them. Black dandyism and Pachuco culture were very similar at their core: both movements hinged on defiantly reclaiming power and dignity by rejecting oppressive ideals and celebrating their respective cultures with distinctive flair.

The commonalities between Black dandyism and Pachuco culture reflect shared challenges between Black and Latino communities in the United States. Jim Crow laws targeted Black Americans across the country, actively working to strip them of their rights, humanity, and access to wider society. Many of the same policies were used to target Latinos. In states with large Latino populations, these were dubbed “Juan Crow” laws. Children were whipped in school for speaking Spanish, often out of fear that they were conspiring against their white schoolteachers. These students were given Anglicized names and beaten for using the ones they were given at birth. Schools were segregated, as were churches, restrooms, water fountains. Latinos were lynched, which was especially common in Texas and California. Pachuco culture–and the zoot suit that came to define it–emerged as a bold, nonviolent rejection of systematic oppression.

Pachuco culture took root in inner city Los Angeles after a search for work drew Mexican Americans to the city in droves. Los Angeles became one of the largest and most influential hubs of Pachuco culture in the country. The culture shaped local fashion, with the zoot suit becoming a staple for many Angelenos– especially within communities of color. More than just fashion, it symbolized resistance, pride, and visibility in the face of a dominant culture that sought to erase them. Over time, the suits were also adopted by local gangs, prompting outsiders to conflate “Pachuco” and “zoot suit” with criminal activity. White Angelenos rejected the defiance behind Pachuco culture, and looked down upon “zoot suiters” in pursuit of social dominance.

When the U.S. entered World War II, the zoot soot became even more controversial. Wartime rations extended to fabric, and the federal government restricted the manufacturing of wool clothing, consequently outlawing the production of the traditionally wool-based zoot suits. In the spirit of resistance that popularized them in the first place, Mexican Angelenos continued to produce and purchase zoot suits on the black market. This was intentionally audacious, reclaiming power in a system that fought to strip Mexicans of their rights. In the context of greater U.S. wartime culture, the masses decided that zoot suits were wasteful, tacky and decidedly un-American – and so were the people who wore them.

Black market zoot suit production gave the general public an excuse to paint Mexicans as treasonous, un-American criminals with no loyalty to the U.S. This line of reasoning was commonplace against minorities at the time, and was used to justify Japanese internment camps just a few years later. World War II launched an era of American exceptionalism, which amplified xenophobia and discriminatory practices across the country. If America was exceptional, then Americans were exceptional, and the dominant culture, led by white Americans, barred people of color from having a claim to that identity. Many of these arguments drive how the news discusses immigrants today.

In 1943, violating a federal ration fed into the narrative that Mexicans shouldn’t have a claim to the American national identity, fueling racial tensions to the point of violence. 

From June 3 to June 8, white servicemembers stationed themselves on every corner, looking at Mexicans as prideful criminals who needed to be put in their place. These servicemembers started targeting anyone in a zoot suit, which made Filipino and Black Angelenos victims of this racially charged violence alongside their Latino neighbors. As the days wore on, the attackers stopped hiding behind hatred for zoot suits and exposed their racial motivations by targeting all Mexicans they could see. They threw them to the ground, beat them, and stripped them of their clothes as a show of dominance. 

In the end, the Los Angeles City Council proclaimed that zoot suits were banned in the City of Los Angeles, attempting to gain control of a city overrun with violence. In an effort to refocus their servicemembers on their wartime duties, military officials labeled Los Angeles officially off-limits to active duty servicemen and ordered military police to arrest those who did not comply. The Los Angeles Police Department referred to the Zoot Suit Riots as part of a “Mexican crime wave” and arrested nearly 600 Mexican Angelenos, leaving their attackers at large. The violence came to a halt, but its legacy persists. 

There is a specific, knowing fear that exists in this city as a direct result of Juan Crow and the Zoot Suit Riots. Generations of Mexican Angelenos remember targeted racial violence against people who look like them. When ICE agents pulled people from their cars on the way to work this June, it reverberated through the community. 

Los Angeles is a place where Mexican culture is not just celebrated, but integrated into the very DNA of the city. Immigrants have shaped Los Angeles into the city we know today. The ICE raids rattled the sense of safety and community that has been established here, and the city’s history with the Zoot Suit riots grounded many Angelenos – myself included – in a demoralizing reality: targeted, racially fueled violence against Mexicans in Los Angeles has happened before, and it can happen again. 

I drove through Downtown Los Angeles in June, while the protests were still active. The city was strikingly empty. ICE’s imposing presence was palpable. A city that had always felt warm and energetic now felt foreign and threatening. Protestors flooded the streets, waving Mexican and American flags alike – the rowdiest they got was when they chanted at me to honk my horn in support of their march. These protests were an undeniably protective show of solidarity across Los Angeles, fueled by a deep respect for the contributions of immigrants that breathe life into the city. This spirit of defiance calls back to the Zoot suit itself: a symbol of dignity, reclaimed identity, pride, and community.

When I got home from my drive, I sat down to watch the news and was struck by the dramatized reporting compared to what I had just experienced firsthand. The way that the media and policymakers discuss immigration, protests, and racial profiling has not changed very much in the last 80 years.

While the Zoot Suit Riots unfolded, prominent news outlets – including the Washington Post – described the servicemen leading these attacks as “angels of vengeance,” while the Latinos targeted were called “youthful hoodlums” and blamed for the violence that overtook the city. The LAPD manufactured the term “Mexican crime wave” to convince the public that the victims of these attacks were criminals – this was their way of justifying the violence, getting the public to divest from the victims’ arguments, and dominating the public narrative around the riots for a faster resolution. 

This strategy mirrors right-leaning interpretations of this years’ ICE raids. This headline from the Department of Homeland Security is written from the same angle used to justify the Zoot Suit Riots in 1943: “Despite Riots and Assaults, ICE and Border Patrol Arrest Worst of the Worst Criminal Illegal Aliens Including Rapists, Gang Members, Murderers, and Pedophiles in Los Angeles.” That’s not where the similarities stop. After the riots in 1943, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt published a statement that condemned the Zoot Suit Riots and labeled them racial prejudice. The LA Times hit back on June 18, 1943, with an article called “Mrs. Roosevelt Blindly Stirs Racial Discord,” in which they accused her of mindlessly mischaracterizing the attacks and having “‘communist leanings.’” President Trump levies similar accusations at his opposition today. In a June 2025 speech, the president called protestors “animals” and “foreign enemies,” then vowed to “liberate” the city from their clutches. This is in line with one of the president’s key media strategies: when asked how he was going to defeat Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, Trump said “All we have to do is define our opponent as being a communist or a socialist or somebody who is going to destroy our country.” The 1943 playbook is alive and well – promoting American exceptionalism and relying on xenophobic language to manufacture a common enemy still makes headlines.

While the recent ICE raids were more official and procedural than the off-duty violence of the Zoot Suit Riots, the conversation around them – painting peaceful protestors as looting rioters, portraying undocumented people as criminals (when it is not a crime to be undocumented), and naming those who disagreed with the occupation as communists – mirrors the media of 1943 in a near-perfect parallel. This sensationalism may sell, but it keeps our society stuck in the same tired patterns that feed into xenophobia and discrimination at large. We have a responsibility to stay grounded in reality until these false narratives no longer hold any power, and learning about our history is a productive first step.