Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day June 3rd, 1943, the start of the Zutsuit Riot in Los Angeles.

Zutsuit Riot, it's kind of fun to say, but the story itself is not very fun, it is full of all sorts of interesting layers. The Zutzu riots were in effect a series of racially motivated attacks over the course of a week or so.

Tensions had been brewing between the Mexican-American community in Los Angeles and the mostly white

servicemen who were in LA preparing to deploy to the Pacific Theater in World War II.

The Zoot-Suit riots were when it all burst out into the open with groups and gangs

clashing in the streets. We'll go through this kind of piece by piece because there are so many

layers here. There's racial tension, the way that World War II put a lot of

class and cultural and generational issues into sharp relief, the way the press

egged on these riots and attacks, and at the heart of it all was the Zutzu,

a flashy style of dress that became a flashpoint for many of those issues.

So here to discuss the Zutzu riots are, as always, Nicole Hammer of Columbia and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley.

Hello there. Hello Jesley. Hello there.

Hello Jody.

Hey there.

And our special guest for this episode

is my pal Emily Spivac, artist, writer,

and the creator of the book and now

the amazing new Netflix series, Warned Stories. the Jody. And I will say Emily thinks a lot about what clothes represent both for individuals and for

our culture at large, so we will get to the Zutzu in a minute.

But I guess, Nicki, can you just start by laying out the basic groups in this brewing tension, what's

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