The Power of the Zoot: Youth Culture and Resistance during World War II (Volume 24) (American Crossroads)

About this book

Flamboyant zoot suit culture with its ties to fashion jazz and swing music jitterbug and Lindy Hop dancing unique patterns of speech and even risqu experimentation with gender and sexuality captivated the countrys youth in the 1940s. The Power of the Zoot is the first book to give national consideration to this famous phenomenon. Providing a new history of youth culture based on rare in-depth interviews with former zoot-suiters Luis Alvarez explores race region and the politics of culture in urban America during World War II. He argues that Mexican American and African American youths along with many nisei and white youths used popular culture to oppose accepted modes of youthful behavior the dominance of white middle-class norms and expectations from within their own communities.