Why Not Pachucos? Mexican Americans, Hollywood, and the Impact of Sleepy Lagoon in the 1940s and 1950s

The unsolved murder of a young Mexican American on the outskirts of Los Angeles in 1942—commonly known as the Sleepy Lagoon Murder—came at a pivotal time in Mexican American history. The consequent arrests, unjust trial, and imprisonment of over one dozen young Mexican American men caused such a stir that Sleepy Lagoon is considered a precursor to the infamous Zoot Suit Riots of 1943. During the Sleepy Lagoon trial, impassioned leftists in Los Angeles created the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee (SLDC) to raise awareness about the crime and trial and to collect funds from supporters across the U.S., who ranged from union leaders to Hollywood stars such as Rita Hayworth and Anthony Quinn. The SLDC showcased a pronounced working relationship between Hollywood leftists and Mexican American rights activism in the 1940s. However, this activism was not reflected onscreen in Hollywood right away. This study interrogates the concept of “Americanness” as it relates to Mexican Americans in the 1940s and 1950s and is informed by Sleepy Lagoon, the Zoot Suit Riots, and especially MGM’s abandoned educational short film, Pachucos (1942). It bridges Cinema Studies and Chicana/o Studies by examining films (both produced and unproduced) that reflected Hollywood’s approach to telling stories about racial prejudice in these same decades. It focuses on the crucial question: Did Hollywood attempt to respond immediately to the Sleepy Lagoon incident and the Zoot Suit Riots? With the support of archival materials on MGM short Pachucos, oral histories, historical texts on Mexican Americans and World War II-era Hollywood, and Mexican American-centered films released in the 1940s and 1950s, I demonstrate that despite leftist Hollywood’s strong interest in Mexican American civil rights, it was a fear of being equated with Nazi Germany, as well as the U.S.’s complex relationship to racial bigotry and Mexican Americans that led to Hollywood axing projects focused on Mexican American discrimination. I conclude that the failure to produce Pachucos was, by and large, a missed opportunity to push for unity in the spirit of World War II, as well as against the idea that Mexican Americans, especially “pachucos” or “zoot suiters,” were second-class citizens.