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
In jail, Joey, Smiley, Tommy, and Henry complain that the police always pin crimes on them. They also note that all of the members of the 38th Street Gang have been detained—everyone, that is, except Rudy, even though he was at the Sleepy Lagoon like everyone else. As Tommy, Joey, and Smiley talk about this, Henry reminds them to keep quiet about this fact, warning them against ratting out his little brother. Just then, a white man named George Shearer comes to visit Henry and his friends, introducing himself as a lawyer hired by Henry’s parents to represent the members of the 38th Street Gang in court. Right away, El Pachuco tells Henry to be careful because George might be a police officer. When George asks Henry’s name, then, Henry asks who’s paying him, since he knows his family can’t afford a lawyer.
To some audience members, Henry and El Pachuco’s hesitance to trust George might seem like the same kind of unfounded judgment that racists like Edwards and Smith exhibit when they make assumptions about young Chicano men like Henry. However, , Henry has good reason to be weary of white men in positions of authority, since he has suffered so much as a result of their actions. Indeed, the important difference between the judgment Henry makes of George and the racism Edwards and Smith show Henry has to do with the effect that each behavior has. Whereas Henry’s hesitance to trust George does nothing to negatively impact George’s life, Edwards and Smith’s bigoted behavior has significantly impacted the course of Henry’s life, making it hard for him to simply live without fearing wrongful arrest, manipulation, and police brutality.
Themes
George makes it clear to Henry that he doesn’t intend to make much money from representing him and his friends in court. He simply wants to help them, he insists, saying that Henry’s parents aren’t the only ones who have asked him to help. In fact, a “citizens committee” interested in aiding the accused members of the 38th Street Gang asked George to act as their lawyer. This doesn’t do much to impress Henry, who tells George not to strain himself by doing them any special favors. Still, George insists that Henry and his friends need him, since they face the possibility of receiving the death penalty if they’re found guilty of murder. This resonates with Smiley, Joey, and Tommy, but Henry remains skeptical, pointing out that there’s little George can do to change the fact that the press has already turned the public against them.
Still hesitant to accept George’s help, Henry focuses on what he sees as one of his and his friends’ biggest problems: that the press has turned most people against the Chicano community. No matter what George does in court, then, it’s unlikely that he’ll be able to convince society at large to reconsider their prejudices against Henry and his friends. And given that a jury made up of random citizens will be deciding the fate of the 38th Street Gang, public perception is an incredibly important matter.
Themes
George agrees that the news media has presented a biased image of Henry and his friends, but he says that what really matters is whether or not they have a lawyer who can successfully prove their innocence. He then acknowledges that Henry is hesitant to accept his support because he’s a white man, insisting that this shouldn’t matter. What matters, George says, is whether or not Henry lets him help the members of the 38th Street Gang. After thinking for a moment, Henry says that he will accept George’s help, and Joey, Smiley, and Tommy echo this sentiment. Accordingly, George says he needs to know what happened on the night of the Sleepy Lagoon murder, so Henry says that it all started at the dance on Saturday night.
Although George convinces Henry to accept his help, it’s not necessarily the case that—as George suggests—race doesn’t matter in situations like this. After all, only somebody who has never been discriminated against has the privilege to say that such things don’t matter. In Henry’s position, accepting help from a white man who comes from the same socioeconomic class as the very people who are making his life miserable is a difficult thing, since it requires him to put aside his misgivings and trust an outsider to handle his and his friends’ collective fate. Needless to say, this is a hard thing to do, but George fails to see why his whiteness matters in this moment (precisely because he is white and doesn’t know what it’s like to be in Henry’s position).
Themes
