6.+The+Los+Angeles+Zoot+Suit+Riots

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Mike Furstenburg   My Family and I have lived in Los Angeles for over twelve years. Since the United States has been in the war, things have been getting a little hectic around here. Usually my family and I get together at the end of the day and listen to the news of the war on the radio. Today we heard about Mexican Americans making riots and wearing funny clothes. They apparently wore a long suit jacket with pleated pants and wore a broad brimmed hat when they were rioting (Mattingly pg.1). People are calling it the “Zoot Suit Riots”. After my parents heard this, they got very angry that Mexican Americans would be doing riots while our country is in war. The next day we heard on the radio that eleven sailors reported they have been attacked by Zoot Suit wearing Mexican Americans (Danzer pg.593). This act got not just my family furious but our neighbors, friends, and people in the community. That day my parents and many other people grabbed bats and other things and poured into Mexican neighborhoods. They went to any Zoot Suit Mexican American that they saw and stripped them of their clothes and beat them with their bats or sticks (Zoot pg.1). The next day after all that fighting went on; the Mexican Americans stopped the riots and believed that their sacrifices during wartime would eventually help them in the future. **__Works Cited __**  ==Mattingly, Courtney D. "zoot-suiters." In Jeffries, John W., Katherine Liapis Segrue, and Gary B. Nash, eds. Encyclopedia of American History: The Great Depression and World War II, 1929 to 1945, vol. 8. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2003. American History Online. Facts on File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?  "Zoot Suit Riots." __American History__. 2008. ABC-CLIO. 22 Oct. 2008 <[|http://www.americanhistory.abc-clio.com]>. == = Danzer, Gerald, et al. "America Moves Toward War." __The Americans: Reconstruction to the 21st Century__. United States: McDougal Littell, 2005. 593. = 