In 1946, five Mexican American fathers filed a lawsuit protesting the “ Mexican Schools” policy as a violation of equal protection under the 14th Amendment. In Orange County, a group of Mexican American veterans working with the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) spearheaded efforts to fight discrimination in the local school district, which, like many others in Southern California, maintained a system of forced segregation of Mexican American students. Service in World War II also changed the attitudes and expectations of Mexican American veterans, who became leaders in the fight for civil rights when they returned home. The SLDC not only helped to overturn the convictions of the young defendants, but also forged an inter-racial coalition that became the foundation of the civil rights movement in the postwar years. Jewish organizations joined as well, including the Jewish Community Relations Committee and the Jewish Labor Committee, both originally founded to raise public awareness about the threat of fascism and Hitlerism. The SLDC also drew support from several of the city’s largest unions, including the United Auto Workers (UAW), the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), and Hollywood unions like the Screen Artists Guild (SAG). The Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee (SLDC) -formed to raise funds to appeal the verdict -drew support from a broad coalition that included civil rights organizations like the NAACP and the Urban League, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Lawyers’ Guild. While inspiring such despicable violent acts, the trial, and subsequent conviction, of the Sleepy Lagoon defendants also generated new forms of inter-racial cooperation. The Zoot Suit Riots, as they are known, exposed the deep-seated racial animus and discrimination that Mexican Americans in Los Angeles faced on a daily basis. As the racial hysteria surrounding their trial increased in the summer of 1943, groups of white servicemen sought their own form of justice: over the course of ten days, hundreds of servicemen -cheered on by the local press -attacked young Mexican Americans across the city, beating young men and stripping them of their clothing and assaulting dozens of young women. When in 1942, a Mexican American teenager named José Díaz was found dead at Sleepy Lagoon, a popular hangout for pachucos, it seemed to confirm their suspicions, prompting an LAPD dragnet during which seventeen young men were arrested and charged with Díaz’s murder. While most pachucos were simply hip, young people eager to express their independent, rebellious spirit through their style, in the eyes of some, including the chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, pachucos were violent gang members and juvenile delinquents. In Los Angeles, Mexican Americans became the primary targets for racial violence that summer, specifically so-called pachucos, Mexican American teenagers known for their distinctive draped suits (known as zoot suits). Racial tensions flared during the years of the war, resulting in violent mob attacks on African American communities in Detroit, Harlem, Mobile, and dozens of other cities across the U.S. But the organization’s origins can be traced to the Second World War. Leve Center for Jewish Studies The Community Service Organization (CSO) 1 T19:14:44-07:00 Caroline Luce 15876dd2f73462af784ac961ee54f3b5170890ce 226 24 plain T15:06:19-07:00 34.044735, -118.213384 Caroline Luce 15876dd2f73462af784ac961ee54f3b5170890ce The Community Service Organization (CSO) -one of the oldest and most enduring Mexican American civil rights organizations in America -was founded in Boyle Heights in 1947. Jewish Histories in Multiethnic Boyle Heights Main Menu Introduction: Urban Space and the Making of a Neighborhood Mapping Jewish Histories in Boyle Heights Timeline: Intersecting Histories in Boyle Heights Hinda and Jacob Schonfeld Digital Archive About This Exhibit Caroline Luce 15876dd2f73462af784ac961ee54f3b5170890ce UCLA Alan D. Please enable Javascript and reload the page. This site requires Javascript to be turned on.
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