"They were pachucos, zoot suiters, and proud of it."

1:54 they are dresed so well, those clothes look so good

Great summary. I am a history teacher and wanted to show the entire film, but am running out of time. This helps SO much to summarize all the crucial points!

I love mi gente! Chicana and proud

So much more to this story. Hopefully, people will continue to learn more about the injustices that millions of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans have and continue to suffer to this day in the United States.

All these documentaries always forget el Paso Tx Chuco Town . Thats where chicano started the pachuco style and migrated to los angeles

"Where first popularized by jazz musicians in the 1940s"? Pachucos were wearing tacuches in the 30s.

Love this!! My Abuelo would travel from Texas to visit his sisters in Los Angeles n the 1940s and he use to say he wore these suits too!!

thank you for putting this so condensed.

It is so hard to find history that is not revised from reality today. So I have to ignore what is said here and just say, I think Zoot Suits were classy. Most wore them to impress the girls no doubt in my mind, (I was a kid too), but if any gangs wore them, they did not get arrested for wearing a Zoot Suit. If the Zoot Suit was to come back into style, is would be among the most classy dress of Americans today IMO.

This fashion was popularized by black Americans a decade before any Mexican put one on.

Love this I also love mi gente

I'm proud to be Mexican american

Very informative. Thanks.

Great job!

Black Americans popularized zoot suits not mexicans.

I always have thought soot suits were very classy and in good taste. I think if this happened as described here, it wasn’t because of the suits. I would actually like to see people dress so classy nowadays

I guess my dad was all up in that at Newport beach. He was a Navy CPO and hand to deal with his boys getting crazy over these teenagers. Many of whom would go on to volunteer to fight for their country. He thought the whole thing was just stupid. His words, " trumped up horseshit."

The suits were first associated with African-Americans in communities such as Harlem,[15] Chicago, and Detroit in the 1930s,[15] but were made popular nationwide by Jazz and Jump Blues musicians in the 1940s. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word "zoot" probably comes from African American Vernacular English and reduplication of suit. The creation of the zoot suit have been variously attributed to Harold C. Fox, a Chicago clothier and big-band trumpeter;[16] Charles Klein and Vito Bagnato of New York City;[17] Louis Lettes, a Memphis tailor;[18] and Nathan (Toddy) Elkus, a Detroit retailer.The zoot suit originated in African American comedy shows in the 1920s. Comedians such as Pigmeat Markham, Stepin Fetchit, and others would dress in rags or in baggy suits for their comedic routines. This style of baggy suits would later become more stylish over time in urban ghettos. Many tap and Lindy hop dancers would wear loose fitting suits to the clubs and ballrooms. These suits made it much easier to navigate through the dance floor while dancing. Jazz and Jump Blues singers helped popularize the style in the 1930s and 40s. Cab Calloway called them "totally and truly American". The suits were worn mainly by men of color, including a young Malcolm X.[6] During the rationing of World War II, they were criticized as a wasteful use of cloth, wool being rationed then. In 1942, the War Production Board issued restrictions aimed at stopping the sale of zoot suits

I love my fellow chicanos

Funny how every single one of these they fail to mention italians also wore these

I remember white fence. They always had those suits on. And another gang cherry ville was always in bright flashy suits.

mi gente and proud of it our genz familia need to look at this these younger gererations need to see this

The Dun Bar Hotel in L.A on 81 street and Central avenue is where it first appeared in Los Angeles.

It’s funny how we are supposed to forget how our people were treated, “it happened along time ago” but say “never forget 9/11” some of our grand parents are still alive from that time(including there’s) and some our grand parents just made it alive by the skin of there teeth. Long story short, our grand parents could have been killed and some of us would not be here today!!

American Me on netflix gives you the real story. What she said is the PG-13 version

If they were going to fight in the pacific theater I wouldn't go so far to say they got away with impunity

So...you're sayin....Zoot Suits won in WW2 ? I'm ok with that. Storming the beaches in the Pacific theatre and Normandy in Zoots would have been a sight..

My ancestors were targeted because they chose to dress differently or assume d as lowlifes...wow

wow its good to hear that filipinos are once part of this style zoot suit..

This low key reminds me of westside story

if the suits were available on the market to be purchased, why would people accuse these youths of being unpatriotic for wearing them?

These zoots bois looking like Jojo Villains

Is it just me, or does a zoot suit sound like something a Dr. Suess character would wear? 😅😅

lets bring this style back bois

song at the beginning?

So if pachocos adopted the zoot suits from african americans who inspired the pachuca look? I need to look into this because they also had a style of their own too

SMOOOOKIN!

I think its great they adopted it but they should make a point of crediting African Americans more . they kinda like to act like they invented it without referencing the original.

Breaks my heart this is hard to hear

I’m chicana and my older sis is chicana to my parents are from Mexico my dad from tj and my mom from Mexico City

Surprise, surprise, surprise! The LAPD did nothing. What a shocker!

Few notes of correction here. Around the 1920s when Women were dressing as "Flappers" and the Roarin SWINGIn' parts of that decade was ahappening, thats when you would have seen traditional suits start to become " zoot" in the african american culture. PEople just dressed fancy to go out, and htings got more austentatious by the 1930s when Cab Calloway kinda did wear sch things here and there. THe rise of modern pimping also spurned a love interest in fine garbs with flash and pizzazz , and the trends also spread to hispanic communities in that decade. It was not until the 1940s when things blew up because of racist anti mexicn/hispanic sentiments with the excuse of rationing fabric, that things cemented themselves more for latino people with the trend of zoot suiting. This was taken to a whole other level with the rise of the Pachuco. THere, you are welcome youtube...>,;,

Is it today hoodies worn with sunglasses instead which tends to arrouse suspicion now instead of Zoot suites?

Just bought me a Zoot Suit.... Hope i don't get arrested!!

The O.Gs!... Proud to be a Chicano!

Nothing has changed

Stilo born in East LOS !!!!

Tom brought me here

❤❤❤Evergreen Naomi Hirahara. Great book. 1940. Aki. She returns to California from the Japanese camps which she didn’t want to stay in Chicago. Hammer the zoot suiter I learned about Boyle heights which after war Jewish moved out, because before that, that was the only place they could live. The book has a map which you can visit locations which are still standing. PS. Use Little Tokyo Metro to visit all locations Use Metro line and visit 2nd and broadway and Disney center. Frank Martinez Downey California

Love the Hispanics of la in the zoot suits,og

It's funny how u grow up with a certain cultural lore.. I always for whatever reason knew of the zootsuit riots... When I was like 21 some white girl asked me to dance to the famed song.. I was like WTF in disbelief. Perception yaknow.. We're all just people and with different ideas n style. education n Respect is my point

The baggy jeans of yesteryears

As a chicana I love the pachuco era. But you left out the fact that the service men raped and beat the pachucas. Not hating just saying esa. Orale viva la raza.

Can you say "sanitized and whitewashed?"

The Mexican American Pachuco movement began in El Paso, Texas. Thanks.

Gee - I wonder why that happened? 🤣🤣🤣

What's jumping, chicks?

I didn't know it started with African Americans.

Cali made it a staple but come on no mention of El Paso Texas and Juarez Mexico there's a reason El Paso is known as El Chuco dig a little deeper the southwest had a big part in it.

I have always thought that zoot suits were amazingly stylish and im an English white man.

Viva La Raza!!

Everyone knows pachucos are from juarez/chuco town

Thats boas af two wear that knowing you where going to be a traget they had balls back then.

Just another chapter of the shameful past of America.

These comments are from 1 and 2 years ago but the ones saying the suits aren't Mexican American culture are wrong its still their culture regardless of what yall think

Zoot Suits first became popular in Texas! Although alot of people think it started in California.

Wait, so they refused to help out with the war effort like all white Americans were doing? I’m sure that caused a lot of resentment.

Zoot Suits & "Oldies/Jazz" are Black American culture which other Americans took up, mainly Italian mobsters & Mexicans. The word "zoot" is a Black American slang. Even on Tom & Jerry "Zoot Suit Cat" tells you who created it. White people NEVER give us credit, but they had to with tjos HISTORY.

Woooah woooah!!!! YOU SKIPPED THE MOST IMPORTANT PART!!! WHERE IT ORIGINATED FROM !! EL. CHUCO EL PASO TEXAS!

The zoot suits were followed by the amwf, lmwf relstionships too. They target the colored males and the white females are considered shamed as floozy. Yet the community did not yield👍

Fun fact: its still a crime to wear a zoot suit in los angeles

EL CHUCO TEJAS THATS WERE IT REALLY STARTED THEN IT WENT TO CALIFORNIA LOTS OF PEOPLE DONT KNOW THAT

Nothing has changed. Those were deemed as the "thugs" of the 40s. In the 90s they had those gangsters popularized once again by musicians but rappers.

Also it started in Texas from mexican immigrants.

Do pachucos even exist today?

And the VERY FSMOUS UK BAND KNOWN AS THE WHO!!!! WERE PREVIOISLY KNOWN AS THE HIGH NUMBERS SANG A UK MOD SONG CALLED THE ZOOT SUIT !!!! Just saying !! Watch ilt I dare you not to move/Dance !!! go on hall Edit spelling my hands!! I'm old

Yeah right! And Lowriders were started by Germans! 🚘 🇩🇪 ✋🏻

They’ve been cosplaying us since the beginning.

Like HOW it couldn't be about us. No one was killed??? Pachuco style? This is so dang racist

S/o to all my chicanos 🇲🇽

To be honest black people started It all so todos de ustedes ya saben que es putus....black power💪💯🤣

Mexican youths aka teenagers

So whites being whites

Huh... To think that you could've gone to jail by wearing the wrong attire in the so called "land of freedom."

when the media was based

It started with pimps in Mexico City. in the late 1800s.

Mmm, pues la verdad no se cual moda estaba peor la de ""zoot suit"" o la de los ""sagging pants"" .....que feos gustos adquiere uno en los Estados Unidos.

Mexican American wore their father suits to impress women.Same with low riders get the facts straight.white fence East los 1930s love jazz but it had none to do with la raza

Yeah, not racially motivated from the sound of it. More like motivated out of a sense of joint struggle and their rejection of it.

Looked like dorks lol

Do remember that most of those servicemen sailed to war and was killed so we could be free.

They were Americans!! Not mexicans!!

thousands of zoot suiters lost there lives from military police firing squads conducted on the beaches

We Chicano's are patriotic to our culture! The snake an eagle that's in the Mexican flag! Not to the 52 stars or your red white blue Not our culture!

The mexican american los chicanos started the zuit zoot not african american the zoot zuit was xreated by mexican American

This is inaccurate. It's a Mexican creation.

Those Pachucos completely deserved it

It wasn't about the suit, it was blatant racism towards Mexican Americans only, not blacks interestingly enough

BLACK CULTURE...JUST LIKE TODAY. WE WERE STARTING STYLES N TERENDS BACK THEN....