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
Back at home, Henry greets Rudy and his parents, along with George, Alice, and the other members of the 38th Street Gang, all of whom have come to Dolores and Enrique’s house for a celebration. Rudy tells Henry that he came home from Hawaii just to see him, so they all go inside to have drinks. Before Henry can follow everyone in though, he sees El Pachuco. When he asks where he’s been, El Pachuco says he has been in the barrio. He and Henry decide to forget about their argument, and Henry says that he and his friends won this particular battle because they learned to fight back in a new manner. El Pachuco says that this is the perfect happy ending for this play, but just as the lights begin to dim, he stops them, saying that there are seldom happy endings in real life.
When Henry says that he and his friends won their appeal because they learned how to fight in a new way, he is referring to the fact that they challenged the status quo with activism and social consciousness. Rather than literally fighting back, they were able to draw upon a social justice movement, which made it possible for them to stand up to an unfair justice system. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that anything has changed in the way their society views the Chicano population, which is most likely why El Pachuco stops the play from ending on this happy note, clearly wanting to acknowledge the fact that the fight for equality must go on.
Themes
El Pachuco tells Henry that the police are still out to get pachucos and that warring gangs are still killing one another. As he says this, Della comes outside. Henry asks her why she didn’t come to pick him up when he first got out of jail, and she says that she was afraid things might have changed between them. Hearing this, El Pachuco informs Henry that Della is now living in Henry’s parents’ house. Because Della’s parents disapprove of Henry, they told her to either forget about him or move out, so she came to live with Enrique and Dolores. Della then tells Henry that she thinks his parents expect them to get married, and El Pachuco asks Henry if he’s still planning on proposing to her. Before Henry can decide, though, Alice comes outside.
In keeping with his assertion that there are rarely happy endings in real life, El Pachuco emphasizes the fact that racial profiling and systemic discrimination still pose dire problems for the Chicano community. However, Henry can hardly focus on this because he must first deal with complications in his personal life, trying to figure out what to do in the aftermath of his prison sentence. When the audience sees that Henry is no longer sure what he wants, it becomes clear that his arrest thoroughly derailed his life, making it difficult for him to know how to pick up where he left off. This, the audience sees, is the real-life impact of racism and injustice.
Themes
Alice tells Henry that she’s going to leave, but Henry insists that she stay. Alice then says she loves Henry, but El Pachuco snaps his fingers and she freezes. Just then, Rudy enters and congratulates Henry, saying that their mother just told him that he and Della are getting married—which, he says, they should do in the next three days if Henry wants Rudy to be his best man. As he says this, Della unfreezes and tells Henry that she will move out if he doesn’t want to be with her. Meanwhile, Alice says that Henry can’t possibly be expecting her to spend the night with him. Henry says that he needs more time to think, clearly wanting everyone to stop bombarding him with questions. At this point, Enrique enters and admits that he told Della that Henry would marry her.
The overwhelming nature of Henry’s return underscores just how thoroughly his time in prison scattered his life. As everyone asks him different questions about what he wants, he finds himself unable to answer them. It will, it seems, take him quite some time to figure out how to move on from here—yet another illustration of how unfair it was that he was kept in prison for so long without just cause.
Themes
In a wash of voices, everyone talks at Henry. George approaches and tells him to forget about what has happened and to focus on moving on. Smiley tells Henry that he (Smiley) and his wife are moving away from Los Angeles and away from the 38th Street Gang. Enrique tells Henry to focus on his family. Dolores tells Henry to forget about zoot suits. And Della asks Henry what he wants. Shouting above the chatter, Henry says that he doesn’t even know whether or not he might wind back up in prison. He then turns to both Alice and Della and says, “But I love you…” After a pause, he goes to Della and hugs her.
Henry’s comment about not knowing whether or not he might end up back in prison someday is interesting, since it indicates that he’s all too cognizant of the fact that no matter what he chooses to do with the rest of his life, he will still be in danger of getting targeted by racist authorities. By saying this, Henry underscores the unfortunate reality that nothing has actually changed even though he won his freedom. And yet, his prison sentence made it extremely difficult to simply move on with his life, changing his entire existence without actually doing anything to alter the broader systemic problems that led to his arrest in the first place.
Themes
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As Henry embraces Della, the other members of the 38th Street Gang come over to celebrate. Joey is wearing his zoot suit, so Rudy tells him that the style “died under fire” during the riots, insisting that it’s no longer safe to walk around in a zoot suit. They then get into a fight, so the others break them up. After several people drag Joey away, Rudy breaks into tears and tells Henry how awful it was to be in the Zoot Suit Riots, where a group of sailors beat him and took his clothes off in front of a large group of bystanders. Speaking this way, he implies that he would have rather gone to jail with Henry than stay in Los Angeles during these tumultuous times. Going on, he explains that he joined the Navy because of his terrible experience during the riots.
What’s most tragic about Rudy’s experience in the riots is that it made him feel as if he’ll never be able to safely wear a zoot suit again—something that is especially sad when viewers recall how excited he was at the beginning of the play to wear Henry’s zoot suit someday. Now, though, it seems he will never again feel this way, since racist and violent white servicemen have permanently made him afraid of the style. What began as a symbol of a collective cultural identity, then, has now become a liability because of American society’s racism toward the Chicano community.
Themes
Tommy interrupts this scene to tell Henry that police officers have arrived and are trying to arrest Joey. Apparently, the officers claim that Joey was stealing George’s car, so George goes to settle the matter, taking Alice with him. When Henry goes to help, though, his father stands in his way, ordering him to stay put. When Henry doesn’t stand down, Enrique pushes him to the floor. Upon rising, Henry prepares to hit his father but quickly stops himself, realizing that this would ruin their entire family dynamic. Seeing his tension, Della approaches him and takes him in her arms, and then Dolores, Lupe, and Rudy encircle them in a large group hug.
When police officers try to arrest Joey for stealing George’s car (something he obviously wouldn’t do), the audience sees that truly nothing has changed about society’s unjust treatment of the Chicano community. It is perhaps for this reason that Dell and Henry’s family members envelop him in a hug, recognizing that they must support one another because nobody else (except for rare individuals like Alice and George) will help them persevere through racism and discrimination.
Themes
A member of the press enters and narrates Henry’s future, saying that he goes back to prison in 1947 for armed robbery. As a prisoner, he kills another inmate, though he’s released in 1955, at which point he becomes addicted to drugs and dies in 1972. Hearing this, El Pachuco says that this is only the press’s version of the story, adding that there are other endings, too. Speaking up, Rudy then narrates an alternative future, in which Henry fights in the Korean War and is killed in action in 1952, receiving a posthumous Medal of Honor. Reentering, Alice says that Henry marries Della in 1948 and that they have five children together, three of whom are now college students. The entire cast then calls Henry different names, including “the born leader,” “the social victim,” and “zoot suiter.” Finally, El Pachuco concludes that Henry “still lives.”
At the very beginning of the play, Valdez describes El Pachuco in his stage note as “the very image of the pachuco myth.” By presenting these alternate endings to Henry’s life, the characters in Zoot Suit ultimately present Henry himself as a mythical figure, somebody whose life becomes allegorical and legendary. While the press continues to smear Henry’s name by outlining a bleak future, the others frame him as a heroic, triumphant man who goes on to accomplish great things and lead a happy life. And yet, it’s unclear what Henry’s actual future holds, meaning that the audience is left to cobble together their own interpretations. This ambiguity is a representation of the fact that society has continually superimposed its own ideas onto Henry’s identity, turning him into a representation of whatever other people think about him and, more generally, what it means to be Chicano.
Themes
