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        • Introduction
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  • Main Page
  • About Us
    • Our Mission Statement
    • Alameda Division
    • Burbank Division
    • Crenshaw Division
    • Contact Us
  • Kids Club
  • Supply Chain Journeys
    • Introduction to the Supply Chain Journeys
    • Supply Chain Journeys Podcast
  • Port of Los Angeles
    • Supply Chain Crisis
    • Natural History
    • Ti'ats And Natives People
    • The Cabrillo Expedition
    • The Rancho Era
    • The Battle of the Old Woman's Gun
    • Phineas Banning
    • The Free Harbor Fight
    • Working at a fish harbor
    • The San Pedro Strike Of 1923
    • Life on Terminal Island
    • Upton Sinclair on Liberty Hill
    • Terminal Island and Japanese Interment
    • Globalization
    • Life on a Container Ship
    • Automation
  • Museum Store
  • Director and Board
  • More...
    • Old Exhibits
      • LA Playlist
      • Zoot Suit Riots
        • Introduction
        • Native and Spanish
        • Mexico and United States
        • Refugees and Barrios
        • Repatriation and Braceros
        • Jazz and Zoot Suits
        • Sleepy Lagoon and Police
        • The Trial and The Press
        • The Riots
        • Aftermath and Blame
        • SLDC and Release
        • Post-War Changes
        • Chicano Movement and Zoot Suit Play
        • Global Connections
        • Timeline & Biographies
        • Conclusion
      • Then and Now
      • The Los Angeles River
      • Memory and Mapping
      • The California Water Wars
      • Neighborhood Time Travel
      • Mulholland: The Musical
      • Fall 2020 Documentary

Jazz and Zoot Suits

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Unsegregated, black and white musicians play jazz together; in defiance of segregation laws.
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Jazz culture was incredibly upbeat and popular seen above in this 1940s club.

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Black jazz musicians, including Louis Armstrong, perform in zoot suits.

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In the 1940s, a “wave of youthful rebellion” took place, displeasing older generations. One example of this was the growing popularity of swinging jazz music among younger people. Older Mexican-Americans viewed jazz as a “sign of slipping morality” and considered the music as a loss of tradition. As Eduardo Obregón Pagán, a historian from the University of Arizona, suggests “Jazz was like rock and roll in the 1950’s, rebellious and new.” Critics thought that jazz and swing encouraged sexual promiscuity and drinking among younger people. The theaters and nightclubs where this music was played also tended to not follow racial segregation laws. Jazz was viewed as a socialite risk because a great deal of people thought it was poorly influencing younger generations.​
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A 1940s jazz club filled with all kinds of young people of all races wearing flamboyant dresses and zoot suits.
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Jazz performers posing outside the Minton’s Playhouse in the 1940s.
The zoot suit, popularized by pachucos in the 1940’s, was a bold and colorful take on the typical business suit. The completed zoot suit style was ornamented with colors, belts, spectacular caps, and other dazzling accessories. The most visible symbol of this cultural revolt by young people was their enthusiasm for a radical, exaggerated version of the traditional business suit known as the “zoot suit.” Unfortunately, numerous of the white residents of L.A. would associate anyone wearing a zoot suit with dangerous gangs and poor slums within the Hispanic community. Powerful groups of people within the city saw the behaviors of zoot suit groups as suspicious or even threatening to society. They’d view zoot suiters as juvenile delinquents, and the stress during WWII caused people to violently lash out against them.
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