Zoot Suit

Zoot Suit

by

Luis Valdez

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Racism, Nationalism, and Scapegoating Theme Analysis

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.
Racism, Nationalism, and Scapegoating Theme Icon

In Luis Valdez’s Zoot Suit, a play about discrimination against Los Angeles’s Chicano population in the 1940s, Henry Reyna and his fellow members of the 38th Street Gang face institutionalized racism and prejudice. Valdez makes it clear that Henry and his friends are at the mercy of a biased court system, as the men are held accountable for a murder they didn’t commit. As the gang go through the legal process, the judge presiding over the case does everything he can to help the prosecutor frame the men as malicious and dangerous. Although it’s clear from a legal perspective that the 38th Street Gang wasn’t responsible for the death of José Williams (the dead man in question), the public prosecutor insists to the jury that to let Henry and the others free would mean unleashing “the forces of anarchy and destruction” into American society. Because this trial unfolds during World War II, this rhetoric is especially effective, since the prosecutor takes the worst fears of the American citizenry at that time—“anarchy” and “destruction”—and pins it on people of color, conflating the fight against extremism in Europe with completely unrelated domestic matters. By spotlighting the government’s unjust targeting of the Chicano community in the early 1940s, Valdez invites audience members to consider an unfortunate part of the country’s history, ultimately calling attention to the ways in which prejudiced authorities sometimes manipulate patriotism and fear to villainize minority groups.

Zoot Suit shows audiences the consequences of racial profiling, a term that refers to biased policing based on race and ethnicity. This is made quite clear by the play’s title, since it’s named after a style of suit that was wildly popular in the Chicano community during the 1940s—a style that police officers eventually treated as a sign of criminality. Baggy suits with long jackets and high-waisted trousers, zoot suits weren’t exclusive to the Chicano population, but the police largely associated the style with young minority groups. For this reason, racists took a dim view of the trend, ultimately coming to see the zoot suit as a uniform that represented everything they hated, including anti-American sentiments. Henry’s brother, Rudy, encounters this unfair attitude when he gets swept up in the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943. For three nights, Navy officers, sailors, civilians, and other white servicemen run through Los Angeles attacking anyone wearing a zoot suit. While out dancing on one of these evenings, Rudy suddenly finds himself embroiled in a violent altercation simply because of his clothing. One white man even insists that “zoot suiters” like Rudy are trying to “outdo the white man in exaggerated white man’s clothes.” This accusation underscores not only a racist and intolerant attitude toward the Chicano population, but also the man’s anxiety that white people might lose their power in American society—a bigoted fear that leads to violence. What Rudy and his community face, then, is a brand of hatred motivated by insecurity.

What’s worse, prejudiced white authorities try to validate their insecurity and aggression by framing the Chicano community as threats to the American war effort in Europe. During the Zoot Suit Riots, one member of the press tells El Pachuco (a character who serves as the play’s narrator) that the “Zoot Suit Crime Wave is even beginning to push the war news off the front page.” It’s worth noting that the member of the press who says this goes out of his way to conflate the zoot suit itself with a “crime wave,” as if anyone who dresses like a member of the Chicano community (or for that matter, like somebody from any minority group) is not only involved in crime, but also responsible for diminishing wartime patriotism. In this regard, racists take issue with the zoot suit in order to vilify and further disenfranchise minorities like Rudy and Henry, who aren’t actually doing anything to detract from the American war effort.

In fact, it’s quite unfair to suggest that people like Henry and Rudy are undermining American wartime values. After all, Henry originally signed up for the Navy before getting arrested, and Rudy joins shortly after his brother goes to prison. This is why George, the lawyer defending the accused members of the 38th Street Gang, tries to emphasize in his closing statement that they are committed members of American society. To find Henry and his friends guilty of a murder they didn’t commit (without even furnishing any evidence) would be deeply unfair, George upholds, adding that this decision would “murder the spirit of racial justice in America.” Put another way, George tries to show the jury that the accused members of the Chicano community aren’t others—they’re Americans. This, in turn, means that to treat them unfairly would be to go against core American values, which is exactly what racists claim the “zoot suiters” are doing in the first place. And yet, people like the public prosecutor work tirelessly to suggest that Henry and his friends symbolize “anarchy” and “destruction,” thereby using them as scapegoats to advance racial prejudices simply by upholding that they are, as a member of the press puts it during the Zoot Suit Riots, “enemies of the American way of life.”

Thankfully, Henry and the rest of the 38th Street Gang are eventually let out of prison, but this doesn’t mean that this kind of fearmongering rhetoric doesn’t do lasting damage to the Chicano community, unnecessarily and unjustly interrupting the lives of these young men by forcing them to undeservedly spend time in prison. By putting this fact on display, then, Valdez warns audience members against giving into false nationalist claims about the supposed threat that minority groups pose to the country, since this is nothing more than a way to oppress people who are already vulnerable to racism and discrimination.

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Racism, Nationalism, and Scapegoating Quotes in Zoot Suit

Below you will find the important quotes in Zoot Suit related to the theme of Racism, Nationalism, and Scapegoating.
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:

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!

Related Characters: Henry Reyna (speaker), El Pachuco (speaker)
Page Number: 30
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 1, Scene 6: The People’s Lawyer Quotes

GEORGE: […] The problem seems to be that I look like an Anglo to you. What if I were to tell you that I had Spanish blood in my veins? That my roots go back to Spain, just like yours? What if I’m an Arab? What if I’m a Jew? What difference does it make? The question is, will you let me help you?

Related Characters: George Shearer (speaker), Henry Reyna, Joey Castro, Smiley Torres, Tommy Roberts
Page Number: 43
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:
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: