Downtown LA — Zoot Suit Code

Los Angeles Union Station welcomes you in its 1939 Beaux-Arts and Art Deco architecture, designed by architects John and Donald Parkinson. Its 4 platforms of 800 feet each witnessed Mexican and African-American families seeking work in California. During the Zoot Suit era (1940-1943), this terminal station was the Latino community's crossroads, arrival point for young people who would adopt this clothing style as a symbol of their cultural identity. The baggy suits and long watch chains would soon define a generation caught between two worlds.

Olvera Street, Los Angeles' oldest street founded in 1781, becomes your second witness. Declared a Historic-Cultural Monument in 1953, this street of 27 Mexican shops and restaurants served as refuge during the August 1943 Zoot Suit Riots. The Church of Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles (1822), the city's oldest religious structure, overlooks this Mexican cultural center where the community gathered against sailor attacks on leave. Every cobblestone carries the memory of those August nights when Chicano identity was forged in resistance.

Grand Park, inaugurated July 26, 2012 on 12 acres for $135 million, occupies the site of former 1943 gatherings. Its 500-seat amphitheater overlooking Downtown LA replaces spontaneous demonstrations where Edward Roybal, future first Latino city councilman, spoke to defend his community. Journalist Carey McWilliams would document these events in 'North from Mexico' (1948), a crucial testimony on Californian racial tensions.

Broadway Historic Core plunges you into the Latino commercial heart of the 1940s. This street developed between 1890 and 1930 housed 11 historic theaters including the Million Dollar Theater (1918) where Mexican orchestras performed. Grand Central Market, founded in 1917 at 317 S Broadway, fed the working community. The Bradbury Building (1893), with its Victorian atrium and wrought-iron balconies, dominated this neighborhood where young Zoot Suiters strolled, defying dress codes imposed by white society.

Your investigation closes before Los Angeles City Hall, a 1928 Beaux-Arts building 138 meters high, seat of municipal authorities facing the 1943 riots. Norman Chandler, Los Angeles Times owner, covered from his 1935 Art Deco building the tensions tearing the city apart. You take away understanding of a multicultural Los Angeles born in confrontation, where each community had to conquer its place. The Zoot Suit Riots mark the birth of the modern Chicano movement, prefiguring civil rights struggles of following decades.