Chicano/Chicana Term Analysis

PACHUCO: […] Ladies and gentlemen
the play you are about to see
is a construct of fact and fantasy.
The Pachuco Style was an act in Life
and his language a new creation.
[…]
I speak as an actor on the stage.
The Pachuco was existential
for he was an Actor in the streets
both profane and reverential.

PACHUCO: Off to fight for your country.

HENRY: Why not?

PACHUCO: Because this ain’t your country. Look what’s happen­ing all around you. The Japs have sewed up the Pacific. Rommel is kicking ass in Egypt but the Mayor of L.A. has declared all-out war on Chicanos. On you!

PRESS: […] We are deal­ing with a threat and danger to our children, our families, our homes. Set these pachucos free, and you shall unleash the forces of anarchy and destruction in our society. Set these pachucos free and you will turn them into heroes. Others just like them must be watching us at this very moment. What nefarious schemes can they be hatching in their twisted minds? Rape, drugs, assault, more vio­lence? Who shall be their next innocent victim in some dark alley way, on some lonely street? You? You? Your loved ones? No! Henry Reyna and his Latin juvenile co­horts are not heroes. They are criminals, and they must be stopped. The specific details of this murder are irrelevant before the overwhelming danger of the pachuco in our midst. I ask you to find these zoot-suited gangsters guilty of murder and to put them in the gas chamber where they belong.

TOMMY: […] I don’t want to be treated any different than the rest of the batos, see? And don’t expect me to talk to you like some square An­glo [...]. You just better find out what it means to be Chicano, and it better be pretty damn quick.

[…]

I also know that I’m in here just be­ cause I hung around with Mexicans ... or pachucos. Well, just remember this, Alicia ... I grew up right alongside most of these batos, and I’m pachuco too.

PRESS: Henry Reyna went back to prison in 1947 for robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. While incarcerated, he killed another inmate and he wasn’t released until 1955, when he got into hard drugs. He died of the trauma of his life in 1972.

PACHUCO: That’s the way you see it, ese. But there’s other way[s] to end this story.

RUDY: Henry Reyna went to Korea in 1950. He was shipped across in a destroyer and defended the 38th Parallel until he was killed at Inchon in 1952, being posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

ALICE: Henry Reyna married Della in 1948 and they have five kids, three of them now going to the University, speaking calo and calling themselves Chicanos.