While racism and xenophobia was very much involved, it was seen more in the symptoms than in the causation.

It's been awhile since I studied the specifics, but if I remember correctly there were cases of service men assaulting an out of uniform Latino-American serviceman mistaking him for a zootsuit.

A further [not so] fun fact: This, the braceros program, was when a large portion of agricultural work shifted to the Latino demographic. Previously, large portions of agricultural work in California was done by Japanese immigrants, until they were placed in camps for WW2. This program continued well beyond WW2, and had a long history of conflict. First with a less than favorable domestic reception(anger at "Jody"/Anger at people working for less), later(20 years) with it spurring massive concerns with mistreatment of workers(poor living conditions/workers unhappy with low wages), and even today with immigration rights issues still affected by these lasting sentiments. Also, this spurred the agricultural workers union to form, and where the importance of Caesar Chavez comes from.

Super interesting element of WW2/Labor History, and wasn't widely studied until somewhat recently.