American Experience

S14 E8: Zoot Suit Riots

"Zoot Suit Riots" recalls a week of violence that rocked Los Angeles in June 1943, pitting Mexican-Americans against Anglos, many of them servicemen. Hector Elizondo narrates the hour, which uses atmospheric re-creations and interviews with historians and people who lived through it to chart a year of steadily rising tension leading up to the riots. One key event: an August 1942 altercation in which a young Mexican-American man died. The defendants were also Mexican-American, but the circus trial at which they were convicted inflamed prejudices and on June 3, 1943, says Elizondo, "the city exploded."