The ’33 Chevrolet Eagle has brown fenders and a beige body. And it shines like the smile of a Hollywood star when the street lights hit it.
The plan was for Manny Alcaraz to fire up that old engine and lead a tour of 100 vintage cars on June 7 from downtown Los Angeles to Lincoln Park in East L.A. to commemorate one of the darkest chapters in Los Angeles history. A chapter that seems so relevant today.
He was going to wear his gray zoot suit – one of seven he owns – with a feather in his wide-brimmed hat.
“I look like an original pachuco from the 1940s,” said Alcaraz, 71, of Paramount. “That’s what the ladies tell me.”
The problem is that the coronavirus and the protests over police brutality forced Alcaraz to cancel the annual event.
“I’m real sad I had to cancel,” he said. “Everyone loved our cruise.”
June 3 is the 77th anniversary of the beginning of the Zoot Suit Riots, in which white U.S. servicemen took to the streets to beat and humiliate Mexican Americans, especially those who wore the colorful suits. And the police cracked down, not on the servicemen, but on the victims, rounding up hundreds in city-wide arrests.
“I’m honored to be Mexican and wear my zoot suit,” Alcaraz said. He and his friend Art Zamora came up with the idea for the Zoot Suit cruise in 2017. This year would have been their third cruise. “But 1943, that was a sad, sad time.”
In Fullerton, Phyllis and J.R. Estrella boarded up their store this week to protect against looters. The coincidence is not lost on them. Since 1978, they have owned El Pachuco Zoot Suits, a shop designed to keep the 1940s culture alive. They are friends with Alcaraz.
“Things never change,” J.R. Estrella said. “All of the anger and all the hate is unbelievable. I understand the outrage, but I don’t condone the looting.”
In the summer of 1942, a man named Jose Diaz was found dead after a huge brawl in an area of Los Angeles called Sleepy Lagoon. The LAPD arrested between 300 and 600 mostly Mexican American youth in connection with the fight. Then, despite very little evidence, 22 Mexican American suspects with affliations to the 38th Street gang were charged with and convicted for Diaz’s murder. That conviction helped bolster the reputation that Mexican Americans should be feared.
The convictions were later overturned.
“It was one of the most horrific court cases in the history of California,” Alcaraz said.
On June 3, 1943, 11 servicemen on leave got off a bus in Los Angeles. A fight broke out between the servicemen and Mexican Americans who were dressed in oversized, colorful suits. That was the flashpoint of the Zoot Suit Riots.
Over the next several days, rioting broke out all over Los Angeles with scores of servicemen trying to find and brutalize Mexican Americans.
“They would cut up the zoot suits,” Alcaraz said.
It was reported that the servicemen were upset because of the amount of fabric used in the making of the suits. The U.S. was involved in World War II in 1943 and some fabric materials were being rationed.
Racism wasn’t as openly discussed as it is today.
In the end, more than 600 Mexican Americans were rounded up and arrested by the LAPD.
“It’s part of my heritage, but I never knew about it,” Alcaraz said. “They didn’t teach us that in school.”
Alcaraz was a basketball star at Paramount High School, then he joined the Navy. He said he never served on a ship. Instead, he played on the touring Navy basketball team that played exhibition games all through the American South.
It wasn’t until the 1981 movie “Zoot Suit” starring Edward James Olmos that Alcaraz realized he had missed this important history lesson.
He became infatuated with zoot suits and the 1940s culture.
He worked for 34 years in paint company warehouses and retired in 2010.
But before he retired, he bought the Chevrolet Eagle in Whittier for $20,000. He said he’s been offered $50,000 for the car, but he won’t sell. (“Maybe if it got to $60,000,” he said.)
“That’s my baby,” he said with a laugh. “It’s like my wife.”
He’s been married four times.
