Sleepy Lagoon and Fear of the Brown and Black and anything not White

So, what was exactly Sleepy Lagoon? Sleepy Lagoon was the site of a fight that escalated out of control and left one man, Jose Diaz,dead. In that time, the dominant society( Whites) was at a crossroads with minorities. Mexican Americans and African Americans were starting to challenge traditional culture norms( not formal but more informal with their style of dress). Could the way a person dresses in everyday life play a role in who people perceive you to be? Of course. According to author Douglas Henry Daniels, the style of dress not only young Mexican American youths wore but as well as Filipino youths was emulated after African American culture. Daniels writes that the zoot suit trend started "around 1940"(Daniels 2002) with first African American youths then their contemporaries later on. The initial connection between Blacks and Mexican American youths was simply the way they dressed, not having to do with racism. The racial aspect stemming from at first the zoot suit style and then later with the Zoot Suit Riots itself coming from the interactionist perspective being the situation(the Sleepy Lagoon murder itself) and how it escalated into a short duration time period.