Zoot Suit

Zoot Suit

by

Luis Valdez

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Themes and Colors
Racism, Nationalism, and Scapegoating Theme Icon
Self-Presentation and Cultural Identity Theme Icon
Public Perception and the Press Theme Icon
Advocates vs. Saviors Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Zoot Suit, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Public Perception and the Press Theme Icon

Although Luis Valdez’s Zoot Suit is largely about how people present themselves, it’s also about what happens when they’re unable to control their own public image. Valdez spotlights the press’s unfair treatment of Henry Reyna, outlining what it looks like when the news media manipulates a narrative at the expense of people who can’t defend themselves because they don’t have a substantial public platform. To further accentuate this power imbalance, Valdez goes out of his way to situate the press as an ever-present and seemingly unavoidable presence throughout the play. Indeed, when Valdez refers to the state prosecutor who mercilessly casts the Chicano community as a threat to American society, he doesn’t call him by a name, but by “PRESS”—a choice that hints that the press as a whole has a biased attitude toward the Chicano community. In the same way that this prosecutor actively tries to condemn Henry and his friends, the actual journalistic press runs exaggerated stories about the “Mexican crime wave” in Los Angeles, attempting to sway public perception against young Chicanos. Accordingly, it becomes clear that Henry and his friends are at the mercy of a malicious press. Thankfully, though, certain reporters like Alice Bloomfield take it upon themselves to challenge the distorted narratives emerging about the Chicano community. The fact that these efforts ultimately win out suggests that Valdez deeply values the power of impartial journalism, clearly believing that a community’s wellbeing partly depends upon whether or not it has access to a fair, unbiased press.

During the play’s prologue, Valdez hints that Zoot Suit will focus on how the press portrays the Chicano community. He does this by displaying a large frontpage of the Los Angeles Herald Express Press, which serves as a literal backdrop for everything about to take place onstage. In this newspaper, an enormous headline reads, “ZOOT-SUITER HORDES INVADE LOS ANGELES.” It’s worth paying attention to the language that this headline uses, especially since the Zoot Suit Riots actually happened in real life. If audience members are familiar with this particular event in history, they know that the “zoot-suiters” in question were simply residents of Los Angeles who were violently targeted by white servicemen and civilians because they were wearing zoot suits, a style popular among young Chicanos and other minority groups. Given that this is what really happened, the Los Angeles Herald’s headline is a clear distortion of reality, since it suggests that “hordes” of young Chicanos have “invade[d]” the city—a phrase that makes it seem like Los Angeles has suddenly been overtaken and thrown into chaos when, in reality, the white service men picking fights with people of color wearing zoot suits are the ones who plunged the city into violent disorder. It’s worth keeping in mind that this headline serves as the backdrop of the entire play, a constant reminder that some of the most powerful cultural institutions in Los Angeles are actively working against the Chicano community by perpetuating false narratives.

Large publications like the Los Angeles Herald also slander the Chicano community in more specific ways. In addition to writing headlines that subtly present Chicanos as antagonistic, these media outlets make wild, irresponsible speculations about people like Henry and the members of the 38th Street Gang, even saying that they’re fascists. They do this, of course, because they are racist, but they also do it because they know that writing scandalous pieces will help them sell more papers. A progressive reporter and activist named Alice Bloomfield outlines this problem when she first visits in Henry, pointing out that one of the main reasons he and his friends were arrested is because “some bigshot” wants to get rich. She explains that a newspaper owner came up with the idea to start writing about a “Mexican Crime Wave.” This, Alice claims, is what encouraged the police and other servicemen to tear through the city and attack young Chicanos in zoot suits. By saying this, she calls attention to the power of the news media to impact real life, showing the audience why it’s so important to hold journalistic outlets accountable for what they print. After all, these false narratives have now put Henry and his friends in danger of receiving the death penalty even though they’re innocent of the crime for which they’re being held accountable.

Although Henry and the 38th Street Gang suffer as a result of the press’s biased and inaccurate coverage of the Chicano community, they are fortunate that there exists a group of people who want to help set the record straight. Alice is one of these people, and she assembles a group that publishes a paper dedicated to countering the unearned claims of other outlets like the Los Angeles Herald. And yet, this doesn’t necessarily relieve the pressure that has been placed on Henry—something Alice herself emphasizes when she reminds him that the press is constantly watching him, even when he’s in prison. When she says this, audience members see just how ready the press is to further damage Henry’s—and, in turn, the Chicano community’s—public image. This is especially unjust, considering that although Alice helps form a response to this biased coverage, Henry and his friends don’t have the same ability as large news outlets to reach people—meaning that it’s almost impossible for them to properly advocate for themselves in any substantial way. Despite this, the members of the 38th Street Gang eventually win their appeal, and this is perhaps because Alice’s grassroots publication ensured that the jury members deciding on the case no longer existed in a society in which there was only one (flawed) narrative about the Chicano community. In this capacity, then, Alice’s efforts demonstrate just how crucial it is to fight back against biased narratives, especially those that attack disenfranchised communities by manipulating the way society at large views them.

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Public Perception and the Press Quotes in Zoot Suit

Below you will find the important quotes in Zoot Suit related to the theme of Public Perception and the Press.
Act 1, Prologue Quotes

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.

Related Characters: El Pachuco
Related Symbols: Zoot Suits, Newspapers
Page Number: 25
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 1, Scene 3: Pachuco Yo Quotes

PACHUCO: The city’s cracking down on pachucos, carnal. Don’t

you read the newspapers? They’re screaming for blood.

HENRY: All I know is they got nothing on me. I didn’t do any­thing.

PACHUCO: You’re Henry Reyna, ese—Hank Reyna! The snarling juvenile delinquent. The zootsuiter. The bitter young pachuco gang leader of 38th Street. That’s what they got on you.

Related Characters: Henry Reyna (speaker), El Pachuco (speaker)
Related Symbols: Zoot Suits
Page Number: 29
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 1, Scene 8: El Día de la Raza Quotes

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?

Related Characters: Henry Reyna (speaker), Alice Bloomfield (speaker)
Related Symbols: Newspapers
Page Number: 49
Explanation and Analysis:

ALICE: Believe it or not, I was born in Los Angeles just like you. But for some strange reason I grew up here, not knowing very much about Mexicans at all. I’m just trying to learn.

Related Characters: Alice Bloomfield (speaker), Henry Reyna
Page Number: 49
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 1, Scene 9: Opening of the Trial Quotes

PRESS: (Jumping in.) Your Honor, there is testimony we expect to develop that the 38th Street Gang are characterized by their style of haircuts…

GEORGE: Three months, Your Honor.

PRESS: …the thick heavy heads of hair, the ducktail comb, the pachuco pants...

GEORGE: Your Honor, I can only infer that the Prosecution…is trying to make these boys look disreputable, like mobsters.

PRESS: Their appearance is distinctive. Your Honor. Essential to the case.

GEORGE: You are trying to exploit the fact that these boys look foreign in appearance! Yet clothes like these are being worn by kids all over America.

PRESS: Your Honor…

JUDGE: (Bangs the gavel.) I don’t believe we will have any diffi­culty if their clothing becomes dirty.

GEORGE: What about the haircuts. Your Honor?

JUDGE: (Ruling.) The zoot haircuts will be retained throughout the trial for purposes of identification of defendants by witnesses.

Related Characters: George Shearer (speaker), The Judge (speaker), The Public Prosecutor (“Press”) (speaker), Henry Reyna
Related Symbols: Zoot Suits
Page Number: 53
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 1, Scene 11: The Conclusion of Trial Quotes

PRESS: (Springing to the attack.) You say Henry Reyna hit the man with his fist. (Indicates HENRY standing.) Is this the Henry Reyna?

DELLA: Yes. I mean, no. He’s Henry, but he didn’t ...

PRESS: Please be seated. (HENRY sits.) Now, after Henry Reyna hit the old man with his closed fist, is that when he pulled the knife?

DELLA: The old man had the knife.

PRESS: So Henry pulled one out, too?

GEORGE: (Rises.) Your Honor, I object to counsel leading the witness.

PRESS: I am not leading the witness.

GEORGE: You are.

PRESS: I certainly am not.

GEORGE: Yes, you are.

JUDGE: I would suggest, Mr. Shearer, that you look up during the noon hour just what a leading question is?

Related Characters: George Shearer (speaker), The Judge (speaker), The Public Prosecutor (“Press”) (speaker), Della (speaker), Henry Reyna
Page Number: 58
Explanation and Analysis:

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.

Related Characters: The Public Prosecutor (“Press”) (speaker), Henry Reyna
Related Symbols: Zoot Suits
Page Number: 62
Explanation and Analysis:

GEORGE: […] All the prosecution has been able to prove is that these boys wear long hair and zoot suits. And all the rest has been circumstantial evidence, hearsay and war hysteria. The prosecution has tried to lead you to believe that they are some kind of inhuman gangsters. Yet they are Americans. Find them guilty of anything more serious than a juvenile bout of fisticuffs, and you will condemn all American youth. Find them guilty of murder, and you will murder the spirit of racial justice in America.

Related Characters: George Shearer (speaker), Henry Reyna
Page Number: 62
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2, Scene 6: Zoot Suit Riots Quotes

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.

Related Characters: El Pachuco (speaker), The Press (speaker)
Related Symbols: Zoot Suits, Newspapers
Page Number: 80
Explanation and Analysis:

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.

Related Characters: El Pachuco (speaker), Alice Bloomfield (speaker), Rudy (speaker), The Press (speaker), Henry Reyna
Page Number: 94
Explanation and Analysis: