ask-zoot-suit-riots-LOC-E

And in the panic of what the county saw not as mob beatings but instead as race riots, the Los Angeles civic leaders called in East Coast sociologists to help them address this crisis they saw on their hands. Quickly, these sociologists came to define our youth clubs as “gangs” and their members “gangsters.” Projecting on to our local youth their mobster problems of Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia. And through criminal institutionalization, made this a self-fulfilling prophecy; Mexicans Americans forming their own mafia while incarcerated.

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