Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Zoot Suit, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism, Nationalism, and Scapegoating
Self-Presentation and Cultural Identity
Public Perception and the Press
Advocates vs. Saviors
Summary
Analysis
The stage is set with a backdrop of an enlarged newspaper, which reads, “ZOOT-SUITER HORDES INVADE LOS ANGELES.” A switchblade thrusts through the middle of this page and cuts a slit big enough for El Pachuco to climb through it, making a grand entrance. When he fully emerges, he adjusts his shirt collar and cuffs, combs his hair, and puts on a suit jacket, completing his outfit—he is wearing a zoot suit, and he looks fantastic. Looking at the audience, he speaks in Spanish slang, saying something that translates to, “What, you’re looking at my clothes, bro?” When he eventually switches to English, he says that the audience is about to witness a play about the “Pachuco Style,” which requires just as much of a performance as acting onstage. To put on the zoot suit, he says, is to participate in the Pachuco “myth.”
Luis Valdez foregrounds Zoot Suit by presenting the audience with a large newspaper headline about “zoot-suiter hordes,” preparing viewers for the hostility that the Chicano characters will face throughout the play for wearing zoot suits—a style of exaggeratedly baggy clothes popular in the 1940s, especially among young Chicanos (Mexican American men). Furthermore, El Pachuco himself serves as a representation of the “Pachuco style,” acting as both a literal character and a symbolic figure, one who actively interrogates what it means to participate in the “myth” of the Pachuco, a term that Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines as “a young Mexican-American having a taste for flashy clothes and a special jargon and usually belonging to a neighborhood gang.” In keeping with this definition, El Pachuco pays close attention to his clothes, indicating that matters of self-presentation influence his sense of self. Lastly, it’s worth noting that he directly addresses the audience, thereby managing his own public image while inviting viewers to consider the fact that the “Pachuco style” is, above all, a performance of identity.
Themes
