The Zoot-Suit Riots: The Psychology of Symbolic Annihilation

"The most incisive analytic study yet produced by a Chicano scholar . . . Mazón looks at the bloody incidents that erupted in Los Angeles during June, 1943." —California History

Los Angeles, the summer of 1943. For ten days in June, Anglo servicemen and civilians clashed in the streets of the city with young Mexican Americans whose fingertip coats and pegged, draped trousers announced their rebellion. At their height, the riots involved several thousand men and women, fighting with fists,...