| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.3

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 256 words from this article are provided below; about 390 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon: Zoot Suits, Race, and Riot in Wartime L.A. By Eduardo Obregón Pagán. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. xiv, 313 pp. Cloth, $49.95, ISBN 0-8078-2826-2. Paper, $19.95, ISBN 0-8078-5494-8.)

In August 1942, someone murdered a young man at a Los Angeles swimming hole known as the Sleepy Lagoon; in January 1943, after a highly irregular trial that lacked any direct evidence tying the defendants to the victim, jurors convicted seventeen young men on charges ranging from first-degree murder to assault, and the judge sentenced all but three to San Quentin State Prison. The convicted were widely reviled as pachucos, a label that often appeared in the mainstream white media in conjunction with such terms as delinquent, gang member, goon, mad-brained young wolf, and zoot-suiter, the last a reference to the distinctive garb associated in Los Angeles with an emerging Mexican youth culture and nationally with the jazz world. The public clamor surrounding the supposed criminal and social threat posed by young Mexican men did not abate after the convictions but intensified until it erupted in June 1943 in a race riot in which white military personnel rampaged through Los Angeles for five nights, indiscriminately attacking minorities, most of them Mexican and many wearing zoot suits. The zoot suit riots, along with the Sleepy Lagoon trial, stand as formative moments for contemporary Mexican Americans, for they testify at once to the longtime presence of Mexicans in Los Angeles, to racial and group oppression, and to community resilience.

. . .

There are about 390 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.