The "Sleepy Lagoon murder" was the name that

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

newspapers used to describe the 1942 death of José Gallardo Díaz, who was discovered unconscious and dying near a

swimming hole A swimming hole is a place in a river, stream, creek, spring, or similar natural body of water, which is large enough and deep enough for a person to swim in. Common usage usually refers to fresh, moving water and thus not to oceans or lakes. ...

(known as the Sleepy Lagoon) with two

stab wound A stab wound is a specific form of penetrating trauma to the skin that results from a knife or a similar pointed object. While stab wounds are typically known to be caused by knives, they can also occur from a variety of implements, including brok ...

s and a broken finger in

Commerce, California Commerce is a city located in southeast Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 12,823 at the 2010 census, up from 12,568 at the 2000 census. It is usually referred to as the City of Commerce to distinguish it from the ...

, on the morning of August 3rd. Earlier, he was seen at a party for Eleanor Delgadillo Coronado where he left afterwards with his two

friend Friendship is a relationship of mutual affection between people. It is a stronger form of interpersonal bond than an "acquaintance" or an "association", such as a classmate, neighbor, coworker, or colleague. In some cultures, the concept of ...

s, Luis "Cito" Vargas and Andrew Torres. He was then confronted by a group of friends from the 38th street neighborhood, who came to the

party A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature f ...

seeking revenge for an earlier beating of some of their friends. Díaz was taken by ambulance to

Los Angeles County General Hospital LOS, or Los, or LoS may refer to: Science and technology * Length of stay, the duration of a single episode of hospitalisation * Level of service, a measure used by traffic engineers * Level of significance, a measure of statistical significanc ...

, where he died shortly afterwards without regaining

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...

. The hospital's

autopsy An autopsy (post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death or to evaluate any di ...

showed that he was inebriated from a party the previous night and had a fracture at the base of his

skull The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, the ...

. This might have been caused by repeated falls or an automobile accident. The cause of his death remains a mystery to this day. However, the

Los Angeles Police Department The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the municipal police department of Los Angeles, California. With 9,974 police officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the third-large ...

(LAPD) was quick to arrest 17

Mexican-American Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexica ...

youths as suspects. Despite insufficient evidence, the young men were held in prison, without bail, on charges of

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...

. The trial ended on January 13, 1943, under the supervision of Judge Charles W. Fricke. Twelve of the defendants were convicted of second degree

and sentenced to serve time in

San Quentin Prison San Quentin State Prison (SQ) is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County. Opened in July 1852, San Quentin is the ...

. The defendants were Jack Melendez, Victor Thompson, Angel Padilla, John Y. Matuz, Ysmael Parra (Smiles), Henry Leyva, Gus Zamora, Manuel Reyes, Robert Telles, Manuel Delgado, Jose Ruiz (Chepe), Victor Segobia, and Henry Ynostroza. The rest of the suspects were charged with lesser offenses and incarcerated in the

Los Angeles County Jail The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD), officially the County of Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, is a law enforcement agency serving Los Angeles County, California. LASD is the largest sheriff's department in the United States a ...

. The convictions were reversed on appeal in 1944. The case is considered a precursor to the

Zoot Suit Riots The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots that took place from June 3–8, 1943 in Los Angeles, California, United States, involving American servicemen stationed in Southern California and young Latino and Mexican American city resident ...

of 1943. Sleepy Lagoon was a reservoir beside the

Los Angeles River , name_etymology = , image = File:Los Angeles River from Fletcher Drive Bridge 2019.jpg , image_caption = L.A. River from Fletcher Drive Bridge , image_size = 300 , map = LARmap.jpg , map_size ...

that was frequented by Mexican-Americans. Its name came from the popular song "Sleepy Lagoon", which was recorded in 1942 by big band leader and trumpeter

Harry James Harry Haag James (March 15, 1916 – July 5, 1983) was an American musician who is best known as a trumpet-playing band leader who led a big band from 1939 to 1946. He broke up his band for a short period in 1947 but shortly after he reorganized ...

. The reservoir was located near the city of Maywood at approximately what is now 5400 Lindbergh Lane, in

Bell, California Bell is an incorporated city in Los Angeles County, California, near the center of the former San Antonio Township (abolished after 1960). Its population was 35,477 at the 2010 census, down from 36,664 in the 2000 census. Bell is located on the ...

. The current address has also been given as approximately 5500

Slauson Avenue Slauson Avenue is a major east–west thoroughfare traversing the central part of Los Angeles County, California. It was named for the land developer and Los Angeles Board of Education member J. S. Slauson. It passes through Culver City, Lad ...

Background

Beginning in the early 1930s and exacerbated by the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, approximately 1 million Mexican immigrants and native-born Americans of Mexican descent were forced to leave the United States for Mexico during

Mexican Repatriation The Mexican Repatriation ( es, link=no, Repatriación mexicana) was the repatriation and deportation of Mexicans and Mexican Americans to Mexico from the United States during the Great Depression between 1929 and 1939. Estimates of how many we ...

. Repatriation occurred across many different states, with an estimated 75,000 people forced from Southern California to Mexico during this period. An estimated 60% of them were U.S. citizen minors due to

birthright citizenship ''Jus soli'' ( , , ; meaning "right of soil"), commonly referred to as birthright citizenship, is the right of anyone born in the territory of a state to nationality or citizenship. ''Jus soli'' was part of the English common law, in contras ...

. In February 1942, the U.S. government interned Japanese Americans from the

West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to: Geography Australia * Western Australia *Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia * West Coast, Tasmania **West Coast Range, mountain range in the region Canada * Britis ...

, after classifying them as security threats following the United States' entry into

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. As society mobilized for war, thousands of Mexican citizens under the Bracero program arrived to

for agricultural jobs, as did hundreds of thousands of Black southerners during the

Second Great Migration In the context of the 20th-century history of the United States, the Second Great Migration was the migration of more than 5 million African Americans from the South to the Northeast, Midwest and West. It began in 1940, through World War II, and ...

to the city for defense-related jobs such as munitions factories and shipyards. The rapid influx of laborers from Mexico and defense workers of ethnic backgrounds from all across the country into Los Angeles heightened racial tensions in the city. A grand jury, headed by E. Duran Ayres, was appointed by the

Los Angeles City Council The Los Angeles City Council is the legislative body of the Los Angeles, City of Los Angeles in California. The council is composed of 15 members elected from single-member districts for four-year terms. The President of the Los Angeles City Counc ...

to investigate an alleged "Mexican crime wave". At this time, the Zoot Suit was becoming a large trend for Mexican-American women as a sign of new-wave feminism, as a way to express themselves, to break out of the normal clothing styles of the time and to fight against the boring and somber slum lifestyle by using bright, eccentric, and flamboyant colors. At the time, this style was harshly attacked for excessive use of fabric, which many Americans claimed was meant to be rationed out for the war effort.

Death

The morning of August 2, 1942, José Gallardo Díaz was found unconscious and later died in the hospital. The autopsy revealed that Díaz was intoxicated and had blunt head trauma as well as multiple stab wounds, but ultimately they could not determine a cause of death. Despite the unclear cause of death, 20-year-old Henry Leyvas and 24 members of what the media termed "the

38th Street gang The 38th Street gang is an American criminal street gang in Los Angeles, California, composed mainly of Hispanic-Americans. The 38th Street gang is one of the oldest street gangs in Los Angeles and has been occupying its territory since the 1920s ...

" were arrested for allegedly murdering Díaz. They suspected that rival

Pachuco Pachucos are male members of a counterculture associated with zoot suit fashion, jazz and swing music, a distinct dialect known as '' caló'', and self-empowerment in rejecting assimilation into Anglo-American society that emerged in El Paso ...

gang fights were the cause of Díaz's death. In response to the alleged murder, the media began a campaign calling for action against "zoot suiters". On August 10, police conducted a roundup of 600 Latinos who were charged with suspicion of assault, armed robbery, and related offenses; 175 were eventually held for various crimes. Due to this round-up of "Zoot Suiters", many families in the community began putting curfews in place to protect those that they cared about from the increasing police presence.

Criminal trial

Group portrait of eight Mexican American males taken in for questioning in the 1942 Sleepy Lagoon murder investigation, Los Angeles, Calif

The resulting criminal trial is now generally viewed as lacking in the fundamental requirements of

due process Due process of law is application by state of all legal rules and principles pertaining to the case so all legal rights that are owed to the person are respected. Due process balances the power of law of the land and protects the individual pers ...

. Seventeen

Latino Latino or Latinos most often refers to: * Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America * Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States * The people or cultures of Latin America; ** Latin A ...

youths were indicted on the murder charges and placed on trial. The seventeen defendants were to be subject to a verdict regarding the death of Jose Diaz. Twelve of these people were declared guilty for the murder of Diaz and the other five were found guilty of assault."Sleepy Lagoon Defendants , American Experience , PBS". 2021. PBS, American Experience. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/zoot-sleepy-lagoon-defendants/.Ysmael Parra was one of the seventeen people who were convicted for the death of Jose Diaz. Parra was sentenced to serve five years to life in prison and was convicted with intent to commit murder. Along with Parra, Henry Ynostroza, Gus Zammora, Jack Melendez, Victor Thompson, Manuel Reyes, Angel Padilla, Robert Telles, Manuel Delgado and John Matuz all received a five to life in prison after their conviction. Ruiz, Leyvas, and Telles were immediately sentenced to life in prison for first degree murder. Many people fought against these convictions on the basis that there was a racial motivation behind the decisions made for their convictions as the media had been portraying, not only the defendants as criminals, but people of color and Latinos as well. The courtroom was small and, during the trial, the defendants were not allowed to sit near, or to communicate with, their attorneys. None of those charged were permitted to change their clothes during the trial by order of Judge Fricke at the request of the district attorney on the grounds that the jury should see the defendants in the zoot suits that were "obviously" worn only by "hoodlums". Every time a name was mentioned by a witness or the district attorney, regardless of how damning the statement was, the named defendant was required to stand up.Sleepy Laggon and the Sailor Riots of 1943
La Noche Triste Judge Fricke also permitted the chief of the Foreign Relations Bureau of the Los Angeles sheriff's office, E. Duran Ayres, to testify as an "expert witness" that Mexicans as a community had a "blood-thirst" and a "biological predisposition" to crime and killing, citing the culture of human sacrifice practiced by their

Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...

ancestors.

Activist involvement

The Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee (SLDC) was a community organization made up of Los Angeles community members and activists who came together to support the defendants. The SLDC was also known as The Citizens' Committee for the Defense of Mexican-American Youth. During the time of the trials many activists criticized the way that Judge Fricke went about the case as a result of the manner in which the case was handled, thus many supported the defendants. Many of the supporters of the defendants turned and created/joined the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee.Romero, Lori, "The Legal and Social Repercussions of the Media on the Sleepy Lagoon Trial and the Zoot Suit Riots" (2012). Scripps Senior Theses. Paper 85. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/85 The committee was labeled a Communist front organization by the California state legislature's Joint Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities chaired by Jack Tenney. Actor Anthony Quinn writes that he began raising money for the defense after his mother urged him to "remember the eggs" they had been given by a mother of one of the accused defendants during a time of poverty. He writes of enlisting the help of

Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...

and Eleanor Roosevelt, and being branded a communist as a result, almost costing him his career. Some SLDC members included:

Alice McGrath Alice Greenfield McGrath (April 5, 1917 – November 27, 2009), also known as Alice Greenfield, was an American activist who gained fame in connection with the 1942 case of the Sleepy Lagoon Murder. She was the executive secretary of the Sleepy La ...

Josefina Fierro de Bright Josefina Fierro (1914 in Mexicali, Baja California – March 1998), later Josefina Fierro de Bright, was a Mexican-American leader who helped organize resistance against discrimination in the American Southwest during the Great Depression. She ...

, Josefa Fierro, Maria Alvez,

Luisa Moreno Luisa Moreno (August 30, 1907 – November 4, 1992) was a leader in the United States labor movement and a social activist. She unionized workers, led strikes, wrote pamphlets in English and Spanish, and convened the 1939 ''Congreso de Puebl ...

, Dorothy Healey, LaRue McCormick, Lupe Leyvas, Henry Leyvas, Doc Johnson, Frank Lopez,

Bert Corona Humberto Noé Corona (May 29, 1918 – January 15, 2001) was an American labor and civil rights leader. Throughout his long career, he worked with nearly every major Mexican-American organization, founding or co-founding several. He organized w ...

, and Gray Bemis. The SLDC's mission was to mount a

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...

crusade so that these 12 Mexican-American defendants could have an unbiased trial. The SLDC utilized their contacts with influential community members to promote their cause and for fund-raising purposes to be able to support their cause. After Judge Fricke's verdict in January, the Mexican-American youths were imprisoned without evidence and because they were "Mexican and dangerous", ''

ipso facto is a Latin phrase, directly translated as "by the fact itself", which means that a specific phenomenon is a ''direct'' consequence, a resultant ''effect'', of the action in question, instead of being brought about by a previous action. It is a ...

''. The Mexican American community was outraged and several attorneys challenged Judge Fricke's decisions: George Shibley, Robert Kenny, Clore Ware, Ben Margolis, John McTernan, Carey McWilliams, and several others. Together they hoped to remind the European American society that minorities had the right to testify in court and have impartial jury trials. McWilliams noted that a few months earlier over 120,000

Japanese Americans are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...

were detained and interned in detention camps, and later argued that there were common links between the Japanese-American internment and the anti-Mexican response in the Sleepy Lagoon case. By the time that the defendants began serving their convictions, there was already an uproar in how young Mexican Americans were being perceived. Rumors later began to circulate that gang members had attacked many US Navy men. As a result many went around raiding Latino communities and began attacking them in retribution. People who were attacked were people of color or people who wore zoot suits.Citizens' Committee for the Defense of Mexican-American Youth. 1942. "Sleepy Lagoon". ''Digital History''. https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=605. These attacks later became known as the

. From 1943 through 1944, the state anti-Communist

Tenney Committee Jack Breckinridge Tenney (April 1, 1898 – November 4, 1970) was an American politician who was noted for leading anti-communist investigations in California in the 1940s and early 1950s as head of the California Senate Factfinding Subcommitte ...

subpoenaed and investigated the members of the Defense Committee in an attempt to uncover Communist ties.

Reversal

In October 1944, the state Court of Appeals unanimously decided the evidence was not sufficient to sustain a guilty verdict. It reversed the 12 defendants' convictions in ''People v Zammora'' 66 Cal.App.2d 166. The appeals court also criticized the trial judge for his bias in and mishandling of the case.Eduardo Obregón Pagán, ''Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon: Zoot Suits, Race, and Riot in Wartime LA'' (Univ of North Carolina Press, 2003) p 207-8 After the Zoot Suit Riots, the convictions of the seventeen people were overturned. There was a lack of evidence to convict the defendants to begin with and it was Diaz’s autopsy report that showed that he was highly inebriated and received trauma to the head, which likely could have been caused by his own doing.Romero, Lori, "The Legal and Social Repercussions of the Media on the Sleepy Lagoon Trial and the Zoot Suit Riots" (2012). Scripps Senior Theses. Paper 85. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/85 However, the convictions did not immediately get overturned. It took the efforts of the SLDC and time in order for the government to finally reverse the initial convictions. The SLDC constantly pushed the idea that the government was an attack on young Mexican Americans and emphasized that these injustices could be fought. Not only did they do this, but they also did what they could in order to try and reverse the views that people had on young Mexican Americans.

Cultural references

* The 1979 play '' Zoot Suit'' and the 1981 movie of the same name are loosely based on events surrounding the murder trial. * In

James Ellroy Lee Earle "James" Ellroy (born March 4, 1948) is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a telegrammatic prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, sta ...

's novel ''

The Big Nowhere ''The Big Nowhere'' is a 1988 crime fiction novel by American author James Ellroy, the second of the L.A. Quartet, a series of novels set in 1940s and 1950s Los Angeles. Plot The plot centers around three characters: L.A. Deputy Sheriff Danny Up ...

'', the Sleepy Lagoon murder plays a major role in the story.

References

External links

McGrath (Alice Greenfield) Papers, Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, Los Angeles, California
* Pagán, Eduardo Obregó

University of North Carolina Press (2003) * Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee. (1943).
The Sleepy Lagoon Case
'. Online Archive of California. * Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee. (1944).
This is the story of a crime
'. The Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA, via Calisphere.
Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee Records (Collection 107). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.

(2005)

A commemorative symposium, May 20–21, 2005, UCLA

* Retrieved 02-06-2015 {{Authority control History of Los Angeles County, California Commerce, California Mexican-American history Murdered Mexican Americans 1942 in California 1942 murders in the United States History of racism in California Unsolved murders in the United States