Newspapers appear throughout Zoot Suit, serving as constant reminders of the inescapable influence of the press on everyday life. When the play begins, audience members set eyes on an enormous frontpage, which serves as a backdrop for the play’s action. This particular paper announces news of the Zoot Suit Riots and immediately calls attention to the ways in which the press vilifies the Chicano community. As the play progresses, viewers will notice that the characters use newspapers as props, like when Dolores hangs sheets of paper on a clothesline instead of actual laundry, or when the judge sits upon a throne of newspapers while presiding over the 38th Street Gang’s trial. In these ways, Valdez presents the press as ever-present, showing audience members that Henry and his friends are perpetually inundated by whatever the media has to say about them. This, in turn, influences not only how they conduct themselves, but also how the public views the Chicano community—something that becomes especially apparent during the Zoot Suit Riots, when angry white servicemen and civilians raid Los Angeles simply because the local newspapers have spread false narratives about a “Mexican crime wave.” In turn, it becomes clear that the press has an inordinate amount of power over the general public. In keeping with this, the staggering abundance of newspapers in the play comes to stand for how important it is for societies to have unbiased, egalitarian news outlets.
Newspapers Quotes in Zoot Suit
HE adjusts his clothing, meticulously fussing with his collar, suspenders, cuffs. HE tends to his hair, combing back every strand into a long luxurious ducktail, with infinite loving pains. Then HE reaches into the slit [of the newspaper backdrop] and pulls out his coat and hat. HE dons them. His fantastic costume is complete. It is a zoot suit. HE is transformed into the very image of the pachuco myth, from his pork-pie hat to the tip of his four-foot watch chain.
ALICE: I’m talking about you, Henry Reyna. And what the regular press has been saying. Are you aware you’re in here just because some bigshot up in San Simeon wants to sell more papers? It’s true.
HENRY: So?
ALICE: So, he’s the man who started this Mexican Crime Wave stuff. Then the police got into the act. Get the picture?
HENRY: […] You think you can just move in and defend anybody you feel like? When did I ever ask you to start a defense committee for me? Or a newspaper? Or a fundraising drive and all that other shit? I don’t need defending, esa. I can take care of myself.
ALICE: But what about the trial, the sentence. They gave you life imprisonment?
HENRY: It’s my life!
ALICE: Henry, honestly—are you kidding me?
HENRY: You think so?
ALICE: But you’ve seen me coming and going. Writing to you, speaking for you, traveling up and down the state. You must have known I was doing it for you. Nothing has come before my involvement, my attachment, my passion for this case. My boys have been everything to me.
HENRY: My boys? My boys! What the hell are we—your personal property? Well, let me set you straight, lady, I ain’t your boy.
PRESS: […] The Zoot Suit Crime Wave is even beginning to push the war news off the front page.
PACHUCO: The Press distorted the very meaning of the word “zoot suit.”
All it is for you guys is another way to say Mexican.
But the ideal of the original chuco
was to look like a diamond
to look sharp
hip
bonaroo
finding a style of urban survival
in the rural skirts and outskirts
of the brown metropolis of Los, cabron.
Newspapers Symbol Timeline in Zoot Suit
