Ashley Genao and David Canas Granados proved to be an incredible research team, developing an impressive seven minute documentary that tells the story of the Zoot Suit Riots. Their National History Day project at Huntington High School captured this year’s Latino-American History Award.
Ashley Genao and David Canas Granados studied the Zoot Suit Riots in LA.
“The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of violent clashes during which mobs of U.S. servicemen, off-duty police officers and civilians brawled with young Latinos and other minorities in Los Angeles,” according to History.com. “The June 1943 riots took their name from the baggy suits worn by many minority youths during that era, but the violence was more about racial tension than fashion.”
Students spent months developing their National History Day contest entries. Participants vied in categories ranging from research papers to individual and group websites, exhibits and documentaries. This year’s national theme was “Communication in History: The Key to Understanding.”
The two research partners took a deep dive into their topic, really exploring it from every possible angle as they went about designing and producing their documentary and filling it with their interesting findings. To view the documentary click on this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xvB3ndHINBihS68TJWNx3kzR16gLBMIQ/view.
“We chose this research topic after being inspired by our shared Spanish culture,” Ms. Genao. “We knew we wanted to do something that showcased how Hispanics were treated in the past and how it still correlates to present day America. That’s when we came across the Zoot Suit Riots, which demonstrated the terrible treatment Hispanics endured for just showcasing their culture.”
The project was especially meaningful for the two teenagers. “I know for me personally I had a connection to this project being a young Latina woman and seeing the mistreatment my people faced,” Ms. Genao said. “The topic also interested me because the Hispanic community and I continue to face this issue today.”
The research partners worked well together and the documentary they developed was packed with interesting historical information and analysis.
“Ashley Genao and I both take pride in being Latinos, so we decided that our project had to connect to something in Latino history,” Mr. Canas Granados said. “My first idea was to do the folklore from a Latin American country, but we then bounced other ideas such as immigration. Then we came along to the Zoot Suit Riots and we began to do more research on it and we felt drawn to this. So we decided to base our project on the Zoot Suit Riots. To connect it to this year’s contest theme we decided to focus on bias in the media. We spent weeks working hard on our documentary to develop this project to the best of our abilities.”
The teenagers were pleased with the results of their work. “I really truly believe that our project came out great,” Ms. Genao said. “It helped us connect with our culture more and raised awareness to issues in the Hispanic community that are not always apparent.”