Zoot Suit Riots

Within Toni Morrison's Home and America's social dynamics of the 30's and 40's, the amount of factors tied to racial tension extend far beyond the emancipation of slavery in the South. With a war forming on the horizon, segregated militaries and the upkeep of industry by women and people of color created new opportunities to explore racial and gender boundaries. However, these conditions also allowed the authority of white privilege to redefine means of social control. I was interested in looking at other factors of social, political, and economic unrest during this era and decidedly focused on the emergence of jazz, which included its own version of cultural protest.


On the PBS website I found information on a movie regarding the involvement of a group of young Mexicans in the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943. Combining the racial tension between privileged white males and a confident generation of colored musicians, this moment of social conflict appeared to having more similarities than differences to the struggles of the black population across the country. "The tension continued to escalate until a street fight between sailors and Mexican American boys sparked more than a week of fighting in June of 1943 known as the Zoot Suit Riots."


This website defines 'the zoot-suit' as "one part of the jazz world that visually defied the norms of segregation. Unwritten rules demanded that people of color remain unseen and unheard in public spaces, but the zoot suit, with broad shoulders, narrow waist, and ballooned pants, was loud and bold. Zoot-suited young men (and some young women) held themselves upright and walked with a confident swagger that seemed to flow from the very fashion itself."


Within the novel Home, our main character Frank Money encounters a man wearing zoot suit on the train returning to his hometown Lotus, Georgia. This passage includes Frank's commentary on the lasting impression he received of this character, and more useful to our class, the opportunity to read Toni Morrison's interpretation of manhood, the silent protest of a fashion statement, and its political effect around the nation.


On page 33, Frank wakes from his sleep and sees "the outline of the small-man, the one from the train, his wide-brimmed hat unmistakable in the frame of light at the window... Frank went back to bed, thinking that particular living dream was not all that bad compared to others he'd has... This one was comic, in a way. He had heard about those suits, but never saw anybody wearing one. If they were the signals of manhood, he would have preferred a loincloth and some white paint artfully smeared on forehead and cheeks. Holding a spear, of course.  But the zoot-suitors chose another costume: wide shoulders, wide-brimmed hats, watch chains, pants ballooned up from narrow cuffs beyond the waits to the chest. It had been enough of a fashion statement to interest riot cops on each coast."


This redefining of masculinity directly contradicts the limitations placed on men of color by white male authority, from indirect feminization to the history of slavery. Frank Money appears to play into the Western ideology of manhood by rejecting any possibility of his participation in the fashion statement. However, he continues to state that he would rather dress as a savage native, "Holding a spear, of course." This insinuates that the zoot suit stands underneath the most simplified and primal aspect of masculinity, which corresponds more to those wearing the clothes than the actual clothes themselves.


(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/zoot/index.html)