Zoot suits revisited

In his Westword column in the L.A. Times Book Review, Jonathan Kirsch reviews Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon: Zoot Suits, Race, and Riot in Wartime L.A.

Playwrights and pop singers � from Luis Valdez ("Zoot Suit") to the Cherry Poppin' Daddies ("Zoot Suit Riot") � have elevated the 1942 slaying known as the Sleepy Lagoon murder and the so-called Zoot Suit Riot of 1943 to mythic status in the popular culture. Now Eduardo Obreg�n Pag�n deconstructs the myth and decodes the social, cultural and political meanings that can be read in virtually every detail in "Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon," a brilliant and ultimately persuasive effort to explain the function of music and fashion in shaping how Americans see themselves, then and now.