American Experience

NARRATOR

On a clear night in August of 1942, a group of Mexican American teenagers from L.A.'s 38th Street headed to a swimming hole called Sleepy Lagoon. Riding in the car was Hank Leyvas. Earlier that evening, Hank and his girlfriend had been beaten by Mexican American kids from another neighborhood. Hank was determined to defend his sweetheart's honor. As they approached Sleepy Lagoon, the sounds of a party filtered through the trees, and Hank Leyvas thought he had found the boys he was looking for.

HADDA BROOKS (on recording)

To spend one night with you In our old rendezvous To reminisce with you That's my desire To dance where gypsies play (glass shattering) And let our hearts go astray Down in that dim caf (men struggling) That's my... (record scratches) (skipping

backward)

Desire... desire... desire... de...

NARRATOR

The ten-minute fight at Sleepy Lagoon had all the markings of a typical teenage rumble-- except for what neighbors discovered later that night. In the light of the full moon, Jos Daz, a 22-year-old about to go off to war, lay dying. He had been beaten and stabbed.

EDWARD ESCOBAR

During the summer of 1942, there had been growing concern about Mexican American youth crime. When the Sleepy Lagoon case broke-- when Jos Daz's body was found-- it came at exactly the right moment for the hysteria to erupt.

NARRATOR

In the 1940s, one Mexican American kid killing another didn't attract much interest from authorities. But in wartime Los Angeles, Jos Daz's murder would play out differently. The police department stormed the city's Mexican American community. Hank Leyvas was the main suspect. The arrest and trial of Leyvas and others from the 38th Street neighborhood raised fears that Mexican youth were out of control. (chain rattling) Within months, the city would be gripped by brutal racial rioting. Mexican Americans would point to the riots of 1943 as the darkest days of their long history in the City of the Angels. (flames crackling) In 1942, the mood in the City of the Angels was eerie. The country was at war. On the streets, the talk was of spies and traitors. Suspicions swirled around young Mexican Americans. Fears abounded that rebellious kids were being manipulated by enemy agents. GEORGE SNCHEZ: In the local papers, you saw often

columns right next to each other

Japan is doing this, and our local threat is these Mexican American youth. (bell ringing slowly)

NARRATOR

Less than 100 years before, Los Angeles belonged to Mexico. Business was conducted in Spanish and streets had names like Eternidad and Chapule. (people talking in background) But by 1942, Nuestra Seora de Los ngeles was now simply Los Angeles. (car horns beeping) And more than just the name of the city had changed. Chapule became Pearl Street and Eternidad became Broadway. As Los Angeles grew, Mexican Americans came to be viewed as foreigners in a city established by their ancestors. Within 48 hours of Jos Daz's murder, 600 young Mexican Americans were caught in a dragnet.

LUPE LEYVAS

They picked up everybody that was over 12 and up to 25. And you couldn't walk out on the street, because they would take you. So the word went out in the neighborhood, "They're picking up everybody. And it's about a fight, and it's about somebody got killed." Then the parents would go to the other parent and tell them, "Look, they're doing this and that. Keep the kids in the house." We were just peeking out the windows, and police were all over the streets.

ESCOBAR

The police did regularly harass Mexican kids on the street because they thought of them as being the criminal element. If the kid looked suspicious, they would pick them up. If the kid looked sullen or didn't give proper respect, that kid could get beat up by the police. There, there are a number of instances in which Mexican kids said, "You know,

if you're on the street after 8

00, "just be careful, you got to... You got to get off the streets."

NARRATOR

Hank Leyvas was no stranger to the L.A.P.D. Leyvas was routinely picked up by police when the suspect of a crime was ambiguously described as an "unknown Mexican." EDUARDO PAGN: From the perspective of the L.A.P.D., Henry was a delinquent with a chip on his shoulder-- largely because he was the kind of kid who would stand up for his rights. He would protest assaults upon him. He would protest if he was arrested, for example. He would challenge them. By the summer of 1942, his life seemed headed in a new direction. He had enlisted in the Merchant Marine, even been issued a uniform. But now he was a suspect in the murder of Jos Daz. As soon as we pulled up, my mother started to get out of the car, and the police surrounded the car, and they... And they arrested my brother. I asked them, "Where are you taking him?" And they said, "To the 77th Police Station." (children playing, dog barking) Decades of discrimination had forced the Mexican American community to turn inward. By the 1940s, L.A.'s 250,000 Mexican Americans lived in a series of tight-knit neighborhoods called "barrios." The communities were traditional, conservative, and self-contained. But like many Mexican Americans of his generation, Hank Leyvas refused to accept the confines of the barrio. (dog barking in distance) There was a different America outside their neighborhood, and Hank and others like him wanted to claim a piece for themselves. (car horns honking) SNCHEZ: The tensions that arose from this sort of splitting of culture is that often, parents really saw their children disappearing from them, from the sanctity of the barrio, from the cultural world. Even though physically they remained, they more often were the people that would venture into various aspects of American culture. PAGN: These kids spoke to each other in English. And it was an English that was punctuated by jazz phrases-- "cool," "hip," "on time." All of these kinds of things that they very clearly drew from jazz culture during this period. And some of the boys from 38th Street will tell you, they didn't know Spanish during this time. They didn't speak Spanish. The wartime economy put money in the kids' pockets. In 1942, they were spending it on big balloon pants pegged at the ankle and long, baggy coats, a style borrowed from African Americans. It was called the "zoot suit."