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Recipe For A Riot

 

These articles ran right next to war updates on how we were doing against the "Japs" and the "Nazis." Signs reading "Sorry No Mexicans" popped up in shops and restaurants in response. .
             The zoot-suiters formed loose knit youth gangs in a defensive reaction to the greater L.A. attitude. This choloization or marginalization by L.A. bore some of the first traditional, vertical, or area gangs of East L.A. Some of these .
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             gangs, like White Fence, are still there today.# The interests of these gangs today have broadened to entrepreneurial opportunities, but at the core they are still charged with the protection of each of their barrio homes, a duty they take on with great pride. This sense of patriotism is similar to what a basic training graduate might feel, but in the barrio it is socially embedded into the pachuco from an early age. .
             During this time L.A. was inundated with 50,000 servicemen training for war. The location of the Naval Armory did not help the racial tensions in East L.A. Between downtown L.A. and the Armory were different barrios along the Chavez Ravine. The sailors" presence was resented by the protective barrio gangs. Sailors cut through these neighborhoods regularly after nights out on the town of blowing off steam. Their often intoxicated state made them easy targets to be mugged or beaten by the gangs.# The sailors were from all over the country and the culture shock was palpable. Some had never been exposed to the level of diversity L.A. offered and didn"t understand the interaction between whites and minorities of any kind. This was something that did not happen where many called home.# Most had just completed basic training, where it had been beaten into their heads they were invincible and should be eager to prove it. Ideals of patriotism ran heavy through both the sailors and pachucos. .
             The sailors made no effort to conceal how they felt about the young Chicano men who they viewed as un-American for not being in uniform and speculatively dodging the draft.


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