Symbol i symbolize a challenge to racial identities. This is about an hour and a half. All right. So let me just remind you where we are in our ongoing narrative of Mexican American history. Last week we talked a lot about 1910 and the mexican revolution and the dramatic changes that this made for the mexicanorigin folk on the northern side of the border. This week we are going to begin discussion of our third flash point in the course, which is 1943, really as a standin for world war ii. If you recall, at the end of last week we had been discussing those millionplus mexican migrants who moved north of the border into the United States, many of them hundreds of thousands of them and their children settling in the south western United States, california, texas and elsewhere. We discussed their experiences, their trials and tribulations, what they lived there in the 1920s and the 1930s and the great depression. I mentioned a couple of times, and well be spending most of today discussing what happened to their children, those millionplus migrants who brought children with them in the 20s and 30s or had children who were born as american citizens and came of age in the 1930s and early 1940s and would become known as the Mexican American generation, who would become young adults living in the United States as the nation went to war during world war ii to defeat hitler, mussolini, the japanese and fascism around the world. This is what we will be talking about this week. I want to remind you a couple of the Big Questions that we have been tracing over the last several weeks, not the least of which is who and what is considered Mexican American or american more generally. Who is afforded first class citizenship in American Society . This changes with these millionplus migrants and their offspring. It is a dramatic moment and shift in Mexican American history we will be talking about this week in the 1940s during world war ii in part because, if nothing else, this moment reminds us that there are contradictions, fissures and deep iniquities when it comes to who and what is considered a full member of American Society. One of the main arguments and points i want you to take away from today and wednesday is that world war ii highlights these contradictions of American Society and democracy in dramatic, fundamental, powerful ways, not least because we have literally tens of thousands of america can americans not to mention africanamerican and other nonwhite racialized minorities fighting for american democracy overseas. Theyre fighting in the pacific. Theyre fighting on the front lines of europe. When those soldiers and sailors are return home it would stand to reason that they would expect to be afforded the privileges and benefits of american democracy and citizenship. They just spent months, if not years, tours of duty fighting for it overseas, putting themselves and their physical bodies on the line. It doesnt seem out of the realm of reasonable expectations that they would expect first class citizenship back on the home front. These could tntradictions, beca many were not afforded first class citizenship and that conversation weve been having about where the boundaries are drawn, who is in and who is out, become highlighted when those soldiers and sailors return. So these contradictions in wartime democracy, who and what is considered american is one big question i want you to continue wrestling with as we navigate world war ii. The second big point i want you to consider is that the war was not only fought someplace else. There is, many would argue, a war raging on the home front, a war for some of the very same principles that folks were fighting overseas for, a war for american democracy, for first class membership and citizenship. Were going to talk mainly about the war on the home front today, and the lens that i want to use to talk about this for the first half of class today is youth culture, popular fashion, and, more specifically, the zoot suit. How many of you have ever seen or perhaps even worn a zoot suit . Anyone . Where have you seen it or worn it . Where . In your doc class, of course. This is a topic that is often covered in doc as well as a few other classes around campus. Anyone else seen or heard of the zoot suit . One of the things i want you to consider about the zoot is that it has a long life. Were going to talk about it in the context of world war ii, but it has reappeared in recent years, in the late 90s, in the early 2000s when High School Kids were wearing it to prom, when it became the topic of popular fashion in music by the cherry popping daddies, big bad voodoo daddy or this resurgence in swing music in the late 90s and early 2000s. Gem carrie wore one in the mask. Were going to talk about the zoot suit in the context of world war ii. When it comes to the zoot, what i want you to remember is, yes, it is a suit of clothes. A suit of clothes, even with its exaggerated style, often flashy colors, it didnt inherently mean anything. The zoot suit itself, just like the rest of Popular Culture in the world we live, garners its meaning in the context in which it was worn. More on this in a few minutes. I want to begin by sharing two stories of the zoot suit during world war ii. I think this illustrates the different racial experiences that came with the zoot suit, and to underscore it meant Different Things to different folks. The first comes from a wellknown former zoot suitor by the name of malcolm little. Most of us know him by malcolm x. Has anyone read the biography of malcolm x . If you have not, it is a something you should read, it is a crucial piece of history we should all take a look at in our lives. Before he became malcolm x he was malcolm little. This is long before he was a member of the nation of islam or became an icon of the civil rights movement. Early on in the pages of his autobiography malcolm little recalls venturing to his local Army Recruitment office during the early years of world war ii. This is in new york. He roll also through the front doors of the armed forces depot, quote, costumed like an actor, with my wild zoot suit i wore my yellow knob toed shoes and frizz willed my hair up. I went in skipping and tipping and thrusted my tattered greetings at that reception desks white soldier. Crazyo, daddyon, get moving, i cant wait to get in. Shortly following this initial encounter malcolm is sent to visit with the Army Psychiatrist where he tells him, quote, daddio, now you and me were from up north here, so dont you tell nobody, i want to get sent down south, organize them soldiers, you did, steal us some gun and kill us crackers. That psychiatrists blue pencil dropped and he stared at me as if i was a snakes egg hatching. I knew i had him. Soon after this he gets his 4f card in the mail which basically excuses him from the army draft. Around the same time, theres another zoot suitor, one far less known unless you have read my name, his name is alfred barella, a mexicanamerican living in los angeles. Barella wrote a letter to the Municipal Court judge who had balled him out for disturbing the piece. He in his letter argued to the judge, quote, ever since i can remember ive been pushed around and called names because im a mexican. I was born in this country. Like you said, i should have the same rights and privileges of other americans. Pretty soon i guess ill be in the army and ill be glad to go, but i want to be treated like everybody else. Were tired of being pushed around. Were tired of being told we cant go to this show or that dance hall because were mexican or that we better not be seen on the beach front or that we cant wear draped pants which is what mexicanamericans often called the ballooned at the thigh, tapered closely at the ankle zoot suit pants or have our haircut the way we want to, end quote. So think about malcolm littles zoot story juxtaposed to alfred barellas zoot story. Malcolm used his zoot suit to alienate himself from the mainstream United States, to evade the draft, to evade from having to enlist in the armed forces. Barellas comments suggest his zoot suit style, very different from malcolms, did not preclude him from willingly joining the service in an effort to assimilate and eventually fight for american democracy overseas. My point is that zoot suitors, mexicanamericans, africanamericans wells the filipino, japaneseamerican and increasing number ofrm. White yh who also wore the zoot suit after the war unfolded thought differently about their style and their fashion, and that the zoot suit meant Different Things to all of them, that the zoot itself professed a kind of wide variety of political views during war time. Some of them were heavily critical of the war, heavily critical of the kind of hypocrisy that the contradictions in american democracy meant for mexicanamerican and other nonwhite folks. Others like barella perhaps saw themselves and their style and the zoot suit as part and parcel of what we might call a kind of politics of worthiness, that this is my tuopportunity to demonstrate that i am worthy of full membership in American Society, and i will show you by joining the service. I will show you by being as deeply committed as putting my body on the line for american democracy as anyone else. The zoot in other words meant different thing to different people, and i want us to kind of use it as a window into the complicated, contested and shifting world of mexicanamerican identity and health nick politics during world ware politics during world wt politics during world w eth politics during world wn pcr ii. This is my way of saying it has a lot to teach us, the zoot suit does, about the complex identities, racial experiences and culture during world war ii when it comes to Mexican Americans. This is where we are today, and for the next hour or so i want us to use the zoot as a lens to think through who and what is considered american during world war ii. Because by the end of the next hour i suspect it will be painfully obvious that zoot suitors, mexicanamerican, black in particular were not considered first class citizens. If part of my argument is that the zoot suit garnered its meaning from the context in which it was worn, right, world war ii, and that to wear the zoot suit on the streets of los angeles in june 1943 meant putting yourself at risk of getting pardon my french, your kicked by white sailors and soldiers on the streets of los angeles, it didnt mean the same thing, say, in the late 90s, early 2000s when scores of youth were wearing them to prom. So we need to think about the shifting Historical Context of world war ii in order to understand fully what the zoot suit meant in that time and place. So lets talk a little bit about the shifting context and history of world war ii. I will leave the outline up there as we make our way through so you can follow along. World war ii brings massive changes to the american economy, politics and related social and cultural worlds that mexicanamerican again, these young folks who are coming of age as american citizens in numbers larger than weve seen up to this point in mexicanAmerican History. As a number of u. S. Historians, most in fact, have argued over the years, world war ii helped pull the country as a whole out of the great depression. It lifts the nation from the economic doldrums of the 1930s that we spent last week talking about. Many women and minorities in particular gained Employment Opportunities during the war. This is in part because the u. S. War Industry Needs to provide goods to fuel the war effort and defeat fascism overseas, and women and minorities are afforded opportunities that they hadnt been certainly during the depression, but one could argue even for a longer stretch of history before then. Labor is needed to fuel wartime production. This is they to win the war. This leads to massive impersonal migration. So weve just had a million mexican folks and their children over the previous two decades move into the u. S. , southwest and elsewhere. During world war ii theres massive internal migrations, not just from mexicanamerican and also africanamerican and others who are seeking to benefit from this employment surge that comes with the war. So black folks leaving the south and settling in warproduction centers like los angeles or san francisco, chicago and elsewhere around the country is not uncommon. Part of why this is important for us as we will see in a few minutes is that the kind of demographic context in which mexicanamericans find themselves living changes, especially in big cities like los angeles where they are now living, these young folks living, going to school with, perhaps working with, on occasion even dating folliclks might not be part of mexicanamerican communities or even mexicanamerican themselves. Los angeles in particular is home to a boom in wartime industry like ship building, aircraft construction. And whether folks were finding work as welders or in other sorts of professions, working in wartime industry came to be seen as doing ones patriotic duty. It became a marker of citizenship, of productive citizenship for Many Americans. So few werent a sailor or a soldier, the next best thing to doing your duty during world war ii was to work in the war industry. In fact, as ive said, many women and minorities not just mexicanamericans did so. It is important to keep in mind however that theres a Glass Ceiling, and many would argue a really low Glass Ceiling to the kind of employment and Economic Opportunity that the war offers to nonwhite folks and women. They are often the last hired and the first fired. That is to say when the war is over they are often the first to lose their positions. The kinds of jobs that they were able to accrue during the war were often those with the least amount of social mobility, so they werent able to move up the employment ladder. Their jobs were stunted in terms of the kind of growth that they were offered. And then after the war was over, as i said, many of them lost these positions. So we have to take the opportunities of the wartime industry and the limits of those opportunities to mexicanamericans and others together. It is not just one or the other. So there are big economic changes during the war. If people have a little bit of extra money in their pocket that they might not have had during the 1930s, it stands to reason that theyre going to spend it. One of the ways that young mexicanamericans, among others, spend it is on style and fashion, and this is part of a kind of upsurge in world war ii era Popular Culture. Theres a kind of newfound Economic Freedom that Many Americans pursued, and this really helps fuel the growth of pop culture and commodities to new heights. So people had more money to spend and they spent it. They did some on leisure and entertainment, on recreation. Theres a dramatic rise in the popularity of film and literature, sports, eccentric clubs, jazz music, dance halls. All of this despite a kind of popular wartime rhetoric in which people are expected in many ways to contribute financially to the war effort. Right, if part of the argument is that what good americans should be doing in world war ii, what they should be doing during the war is working to defeat fascism overseas, one of the popular ideas was that they should be investing in war bonds, not in suits of clothes, that the spare money folks had should be being diverted back into the war effort in some form or fashion. So we have newfound Economic Freedom and opportunity despite its Glass Ceiling limits, we have a rise in Popular Culture, and we also have ongoing and dramatically shifting battles over civil rights. Many mexicanamerican and africanamericans and japaneseamericans, particularly after pearl harbor in december of 1941, support what was known as the bb campaign. The vv campaign was victory abroad against hitler, mussolini and fascism, but also victory at home for first class membership in American Society. You cant win abroad without also winning at home. That you couldnt fight for american democracy overseas without fighting for equal citizenship on the homefront. This became a fundamental and core principle for many medicatio mexicanamerican, africanamerican and other folks. There were some successes in civil rights during the war. Franklin delano roosevelt, president during the initial years of world war ii signed executive order that banned discrimination in the workplace and called for fair Employment Practices and fair housing opportunities. There were also movements against and resistance to siff righsiff civil rights progress. Remember, we have mexicanamerican becoming a larger portion, we have africanamerican migrating internally to big cities across the country. Eventually by the time we gent to the end of the war and even during the war as it goes on year by year, we have black and brown veterans returning to their old lives expecting equality. There are responses to this and racism and discrimination and lack of opportunity and the entrichemee entrenchment not just of jim crow segregation against africanamericans in the deep south, but also jim crow and what we might call juan or jamie crow against mexicanamericans in Southern California and elsewhere around the country is commonplace. In 1946 at the end of the war, just to leap ahead for a moment, it shouldnt be surprising that as veterans are returning and claiming rights and new ways after having fought for american democracy overseas, that theres an uptick in lynchings against africanamericans at the end of the war. If