Website Spotlight: Zoot Suit Riots

Website URL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/zoot/

Introductory Note:

Welcome to one in a series of posts which spotlight quality websites that I use with my U.S. History survey course students at Azusa Pacific University to enrich the regular material in our learning modules.

In this post, I limit myself to those specific aspects of the website which I find fit particularly well within our face-to-face class sessions (each student is required to bring a laptop to class) or as the basis for the students' regularly-assigned written reactions.

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I ask the students to work through the following links:

1. Zoot Suit Riots Summary
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/zoot/eng_peopleevents/e_riots.html

2. Zoot Suit culture
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/zoot/eng_sfeature/pop_zoot.html

Zoot Suit Culture is divided into two main section: (a) Fashion and (b) Music & Dance.

Work through all of the subparts of both sections:

Fashion Section:

Subparts of the Fashion Section:

The Zoot Suit
Extreme Zoot Suits
Girls' Styles
Cuffs, Shoes, and Hats
A Parent's View
Wearing the Zoot Suit
The Fashion
Looking Good
The Semi-Drape
Objections

Music and Dance Section:

Subparts of the Dance Section:

The Big Band Scene
The Pachuco Hop
Theaters
Dance Halls
Downtown LA
Pachuco Attitude
Servicemen

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Concluding Note:

I hope you will use this blog post in conjunction with both the modules on my Learning Professor wiki and the numerous other posts in my Website Spotlight series.

1. The website spotlighted in this post fits within the following U.S. History survey course module on the wiki:
http://thelearningprofessor.wikispaces.com/World+War+II

2. The other blog posts in my Website Spotlight series--chronologically displayed by U.S. History survey course module-- can be found on this wiki page:
http://thelearningprofessor.wikispaces.com/WEBSITE+SPOTLIGHT