Mexican American home front: The politics of gender, culture, and community in World War II Los Angeles

This dissertation situates gender at the center of the story of the Mexican American home front during World War II. With a large number of males away overseas, Mexican American women assumed a central role on the World War II home front, challenging the sexual and racial divisions that had long existed. Historically tied to the more private, familial spheres of home and neighborhood, second-generation daughters increasingly made daily incursions into public---and typically male-defined---arenas by riding on street cars, working in outlying areas, and socializing in downtown venues. Some young women even adopted bold and brash zoot-suit style clothing and violated custom by traversing city streets with the opposite sex both day and night. The presence of these women in urban life and institutions signaled the beginning of a new Mexican American female identity.;But more than just participants in the changing ethnic and gender landscape of World War II, the Mexican American woman also represented a symbolic site on which wartime debates regarding culture and community unfolded. As newcomers from across the border, foreign-born parents often welcomed the second generation's participation in wartime activities as proof of the Mexican community's loyalty and commitment to the United States. Yet because women were considered the purveyors of cultural values within the Mexican community, the immigrant generation simultaneously worried that their daughters' engagement in American material and leisure culture represented the end of Mexican customs and traditions for future generations. Anglos exhibited similar ambivalences about Mexican American women's changing social roles; wartime rhetoric hailed the notion of "Americans All," but the increased public presence of ethnic women fanned fears about miscegenation and the future of the white, patriarchal social order. Using oral interviews, juvenile court records, community newspapers, records from wartime federal agencies, and archival material from Los Angeles officials, this study traces the changes taking place in Mexican American women's lives during the war years and the overall impact of ethnic women's presence on the urban scene.