Embodying the Background

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 68-93
Author(s):  
Veronica Paredes
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Asian American Women ◽  
Race Riots ◽  
Chester Himes ◽  
Movie Theaters ◽  
Zoot Suit ◽  
Us Cities

In the summer of 1943, race riots stirred waves of violence across several US cities, the largest taking place in Detroit, Harlem, and Los Angeles. During wartime, patriotic anger was aimed not only outward at the Axis powers, but also inward at US citizens. This article focuses on Los Angeles’s Zoot Suit Riots, exploring how in a surprising number of accounts of the alleged riot, movie theaters serve as backgrounds alongside white, Mexican American, African American, and Asian American women, who appear as minor, nameless characters. Finding instances in work from Beatrice Griffith and Carey McWilliams, in fiction from Fernando Alegría and Chester Himes, and in the canonical Chicano films Zoot Suit (1981) and American Me (1992), the article traces the supporting roles women and movie theaters serve in these diverse narratives, and how both come to visually and discursively represent dangerous wartime boundaries.

Empirical Strategies for Intersectional Research

2021 ◽  
pp. 29-46
Author(s):  
Christian Dyogi Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Demographic Data ◽  
Asian American Women ◽  
Candidate Emergence ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Intersectionality Theory ◽  
Data Collection And Analysis

Chapter 2 specifies how the book’s research design operationalizes intersectionality theory through its multi-method and multilevel data collection and analysis. This includes an expanded discussion of how using this framework to analyze Asian American women and men, and Latina and Latino candidates, facilitates new understandings of the relationship between race-gendered political processes and electoral opportunity within those communities, and more generally across other groups. The chapter then details the data collection processes for the book’s original datasets. The first is the Gender Race and Communities in Elections dataset, encompassing candidate and district demographic data for every state legislative general election from 1996 to 2015 in 49 states. Next, the American Leadership Survey of state legislators fielded in 2015 is described. And finally, the design for a multi-method case study of Asian American and Latina/o candidate emergence in Los Angeles County is presented.

The Los Angeles "Zoot Suit Riots" Revisited: Mexican and Latin American Perspectives

2000 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Griswold del Castillo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
American Culture ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mexican Origin ◽  
Latin Americans ◽  
Zoot Suit

The so-called Zoot Suit riots in Los Angeles in June of 1943 made Latin Americans more aware of the negative racial attitudes within the United States toward Mexicans. Through the publicity surrounding the riots, they also first learned of the existence of a large ethnic group of Mexican origin. This knowledge, however, often came with an additional message that the Mexican American culture was not worthy of esteem by respectable people. / Los disturbios llamados "Zoot-Suit" que ocurrieron en Los Angeles en Junio 1943 hizo saber a los latino americanos que las actitudes de los norteamericanos hacia los mexicanos no eran muy positivas. A través de la publicidad durante los disturbios, aprendieron por la primera vez de la existencia de un gran grupo étnico de origen mexicano en los Estados Unidos. Desgraciadamente esta información vino con otro mensaje que la cultura de los mexicoamericanos no era digna de honor por la supuesta gente decente.

scholarly journals Heterogeneity of Health Disparities Among African American, Hispanic, and Asian American Women: Unrecognized Influences of Sexual Orientation

2002 ◽  
Vol 92 (4) ◽  
pp. 632-639 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vickie M. Mays ◽  
Antronette K. Yancey ◽  
Susan D. Cochran ◽  
Mark Weber ◽  
Jonathan E. Fielding
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Health Disparities ◽  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Asian American Women ◽  
American Women

Generations of Segregation

2019 ◽  
pp. 210-241
Author(s):  
George J. Sanchez
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Mexican Americans ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
American Citizenship ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Film Making ◽  
The City

Los Angeles was built by immigrants from the U.S. South, Asia, and especially Mexico. After 1900 the city grew as a rail terminus, Pacific port, and tourist destination. It became a focus of film making and petroleum production, and developed booming defense industries during World War II and the Cold War. Marketed as the city of dreams, continuing immigration made it increasingly Mexican while Mexicans faced residential segregation that constrained educational chances, economic opportunities, and political participation. Fragmented urban administration allowed Realty Boards and County officials to limit Mexican-American (and African-American) citizenship despite national civil rights policies promoting integration and participation. When defense, energy, and other industries declined in the turn to globalization, African American (1973-93) and Mexican American (2005-13) mayors offered images of opening while enduring segregation constrained education, employment, and life opportunities for Mexican-Americans and African Americans. New immigrants from Mexico, Central America and beyond faced lives of marginality.

Los Angeles Geopolitics and the Zoot Suit Riot, 1943

2000 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 223-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo Obregón Pagán
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Military Personnel ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Police Department ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Training School ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Early Evening ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Zoot Suit

In the early evening of 3 June 1943, just as the sun set over a city darkened by a blackout, about 50 sailors stationed at the Naval Reserve Training School in Los Angeles stormed through the mostly Mexican American neighborhoods that lay between the school andd owntown L.A. Their actions that night, which consistedm ostly of stripping zoot suits off young civilian men, set off more than a week of rioting as thousands of military personnel poured into Los Angeles from the surrounding bases and attacked anyone wearing zoot suits. The Los Angeles Police Department did nothing to stop the rioting servicemen, claiming that they lacked jurisdictional authority, and instead jailed hundreds of young men (mostly Mexican American but also black and white) “for their own protection.” It was not until the Army and Navy commanders in southern California took seriously the difference between “revelry” and riot and canceled military leave that the rioting stopped.

“I Don’t Think I Have, But I’ve Heard.”: Examining Perceptions of Race Relations in the Los Angeles Police Department Among Male Mexican-American Police Officers

2020 ◽  
pp. 215336872096744
Author(s):  
Roberto Gallardo
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Race Relations ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Police Department ◽  
Los Angeles Police Department ◽  
American Police

Male Mexican-American police officers in the LAPD were interviewed about their perception of race relations in the department. The data shows that while officers are aware of the existence of racial tensions, they do not believe or are unsure about if they have experienced racism or discrimination in the department. Respondents do describe hearing claims of racism and discrimination, mostly by African-American officers. It is argued this is due to officers being unversed in how modern forms of racism and discrimination are manifested, as well as respondents comparing their experiences to African-American officers and in the process reifying their version of the Black/White racial binary in the institution, more accurately manifesting as a Non-Black/Black binary.

scholarly journals Struggles in Cultural Construction by Ethnic Groups in the USA

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
I S Lolowang
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Cultural Construction ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
White People ◽  
Internal Factors ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
The Usa

This article discusses about the struggles in cultural construction by some ethnic groups. These groups are attributed to their race and class as well. Through blending and negotiation experiences, the ethnic groups struggle to invent their identity and power in facing the dominant culture, the white people. They have to face both the external and the internal factors of their coexistence in the society. The groups discussed are the Mexican-American or the brown people, the African-American or the black, and the Asian-American or the yellow one.Keywords: cultural construction, Mexican-American, AfricanAmerican, Asian-American, color people

Critical Perspectives in Youth Gang Formation in the United States

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin D. Lam
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Youth Gang ◽  
Structural Forces ◽  
The U.S

Youth gangs of color in the United States have emerged in the context of larger structural forces. For example, Mexican American, black, and Vietnamese/Asian American youth gang formation in Southern California is tied to their respective racialized communities’ initial movements into the Los Angeles area (from Mexico and Vietnam, and for blacks, from the U.S. South). Structural forces such as political/social unrest and economic instability, both domestically and in their sending countries; the role of the U.S. military and economic apparatus; and (im)migration patterns and trends impact the particularities of youth gang subculture—including protection and self-preservation; ethnic pride and desire for family; having to navigate, resist, and rearticulate youth identities (in and outside the context of schooling); and the desire to garner money, power, and respect in a capitalist context. U.S. racism and state violence have also had an impact on youth gang formation. Anti-youth legislation in the late 1980s and early 1990s, in particular, have helped shape the discourse on youth of color, criminality, “gangs,” space, and citizenship over the past three decades. Although such youth are typically on the margins or left out of educational institutions, a critical pedagogy provides a space for engagement and hope.

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