now receives a new visitor, Alice Bloomfield, who tells Hank that Pachucos are now being accused by the newspapers of taking orders from Japan. Hank is dumbfounded, but he distrusts the alluring do-gooder and her social worker’s jargon.

The trial of the gang, presided over by a judge who is recognizable as a policeman seen earlier, is a travesty. From his bench—a bundle of newspapers—he humiliates the defendants while smiling on the prosecutor—the Press. Hank’s girlfriend Della testifies damagingly, in a flashback to the confusing events of the Sleepy Lagoon killing, and the kangaroo court hands down a verdict of life imprisonment for Hank and the gang as the first act concludes.

Attacks on Chicanos by sailors and Marines in weeks succeeding the trial do not discourage Alice Bloomfield from organizing a defense committee to seek an appeal, but Hank remains suspicious, and El Pachuco warns him not to expect much. In addition, George Shearer has been drafted into the Army, and a tangle with a guard lands Hank in solitary confinement.

Alice Bloomfield deluges Hank with letters reporting the enlistment of Hollywood celebrities to support his cause. Hank finds himself attracted to her, but he has doubts—and his feelings for Della offer more conflict. Similarly, Alice’s Jewish sensibilities respond to Hank’s plight, but she is alienated by his explosive anger, his commitment to Della, and her awareness of his deep-rooted prejudices against the Anglo society to which she belongs.

America’s war abroad passes in a flurry of shouted headlines while Hank waits in prison. On the heels of American victory comes triumph for the Pachucos, too, when their appeal succeeds and they are released. The final scene of the play, “Return to the Barrio,” is left deliberately ambiguous. Hank must resolve his relationships with Alice and Della. Rudy appears unable to forget the humiliations received at the hands of servicemen during the war. Suspicious police still dog the Pachucos, and the euphoric moment of Chicano pride and unity felt by the Pachucos at their release quickly vanishes. The future for those with brown skins, the play seems to say, may lead either uphill or downhill: to integration into American life or to more violence, prison, and even death.

From start to finish, the audience’s attention is riveted on El Pachuco, the quintessence of the “cool” Chicano. Not only does he comment on the action in chorus-like fashion but he also shares Hank’s role as protagonist. In effect, El Pachuco is master of ceremonies, a leading figure, and an interpreter of what is seen. Dressed in a zoot suit to end all zoot suits, he carries himself, as a New York reviewer said, in a “backward tilt that suggests he is suspended by a wire from the navel.” He is outrageously self-reliant and unintimidated by anything Anglo authority can invent. Unsinkable, unfoolable, unflappable, he wins first grudging admiration, then affection, and finally a sort of respect as he rallies flagging spirits.

The play is openly partisan in its celebration of El Pachuco as a hero of his people, striving—in Luis Valdez’s words—to be “theater as beautiful, rasquachi, human, cosmic, broad, deep, tragic, comic, as the life of La Raza itself.” Maintaining “beauty and spiritual sensitivity” inside this ethnic context has been difficult in a production designed for general audiences, and Luis Valdez has revised his play for many years, hoping to strike the right balance between pessimistic naturalism, joyous affirmation, and folkloric theatricality.

To complement its ethnic quality and provide authenticity, a large portion of Zoot Suit is spoken in calo, or street Spanish—so much so that an audience gradually becomes familiar with oft-repeated words and phrases. Spanish is not used merely as flavor, as so often is the case of foreign languages in Hollywood films or television programs. Further, it is calo, not readily comprehensible even to many Hispanics. Cubans, Puerto Ricans, even native Mexicans may have great difficulty in catching the meaning of lines.

Because the unrelenting enemy of the Chicano in Zoot Suit is the Press, representing biased Anglo opinion and racial superiority, newspapers are treated as nearly animate things. Valdez uses the papers much as Elmer Rice used numbers in his expressionist classic, The Adding Machine (pr., pb. 1923). Beginning with the newspaper/curtain that first reveals El Pachuco, newspapers both define and confine Chicano lives. When reporters rush out of a press conference, they leave the street littered with newspapers from which Hank’s father Enrique, a municipal street sweeper, learns what is happening to his son.

Other devices used by Valdez that are associated loosely with the expressionist theater are the flashback, the split stage, and a robot-like behavior that is introduced at critical points. The courtroom scenes make use of the latter to suggest the mechanical administration of justice and a lack of human feeling. When Alice “sends” letters, she reads them aloud to recipients who reply in like fashion. Near the end of the play, when Hank struggles to decide which woman has the better claim on him, his barrio girlfriend Della or the advocate in his legal battle whom he has come to love, each woman stands at an opposite end of the stage in a visual reminder of the conflict Chicanos face between two ways of life.

*Los Angeles

*Los Angeles. Sprawling Southern California city in which the play is primarily set in 1942—a time when the city is preparing for war, divided by race, and filling up with military personnel getting ready to ship out to the Pacific. Tensions are high, the mood among military personnel is hyper-patriotic, and the city has no tolerance for anyone who appears to be an unpatriotic slackard. When hundreds of servicemen and party-going Mexican Americans accidentally clash, the result is a large-scale riot that results in hundreds of arrests, including one for murder.

The play’s bilingual dialogue, flamboyant “zoot-suit” costuming, energetic dance hall settings, Latin rhythms, and references to Mexican cooking convey the strongly Mexican flavor of Los Angeles. The play’s experimental staging, echoing Chicano street theater, moves rapidly from set to set, from past to present, and from mainstream perspectives to Mexican American perspectives. Meanwhile, the play’s master of ceremonies, El Pachuco, pulls everything together through his onstage narration.

Newsboys shout inflammatory headlines on city streets, describing armed zoot-suiters knifing and killing until stopped by the U.S. Navy and Marines and deservingly imprisoned. In one fight scene in an unnamed city bar, Anglo servicemen overpower and strip the Pachuco narrator.

Scenes in the play alternate rapidly among a police station, a courthouse, a jail, and a prison, and the homes, parties, dance halls, and city streets. Flashbacks merge past and present, as a zoot-suited “master of ceremonies” identified only as “El Pachuco”—a term for a street tough—wearing the colors of an Aztec god, narrates the onstage action, connecting the disparate settings and providing multiple interpretations of onstage reality.

At the end of the play, playing with the Mayan philosophy of multiple levels of existence, El Pachuco calls forth a series of vignettes representing alternative futures for the murder suspect, Henry Reyna: a supportive and united family scene in a family living room; a prison scene with Henry killed in a prison fight; a Korean War scene, with Henry dying heroically; a public political scene with Henry awarded a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor; a family vignette of Henry as a father surrounded by several children; and a mythic Aztec scene, with Henry transformed into El Pachuco, a symbol of Chicano heritage and oppression.

Reyna house

Reyna house. Lower-middle class home of the family of Henry Reyna, who is arrested for murder during the riots. His family sits around a kitchen table, the mother cooking, the father sharing a first drink with his son, as the three youngsters prepare for a night out.

Dance hall

Dance hall. Scene of Reyna’s farewell celebration before he is to ship out for the Pacific the next day. Bright colors, lively Latin music, zoot suits, and fast-paced dancing signify a nonmainstream culture. A minor scuffle with a rival gang pushes dancers into the streets, where gang territory and switchblades turn Reyna’s brave attempt to end a one-sided conflict into police violence and mass arrests.

Sleepy Lagoon reservoir

Sleepy Lagoon reservoir. Romantic spot in East Los Angeles where young couples meet, and near which the Mexican Americans, attracted by lively music of a birthday party, are mistakenly attacked. The Mexican American youths tell one story, the Anglo youths another.

Courtroom

Courtroom. Place in which Reyna is tried for murder. His trial is a legal farce. The deck is stacked against Mexican Americans, who are regarded as unpatriotic outsiders, and the judge prejudges Reyna’s guilt. The trial itself creates the passion within the play. The boys of Reyna’s gang are looked upon as social delinquents, as criminals, and even as foreigners. At no point during the proceedings are they or their attorney allowed a fair opportunity to present their case. The trial is presented in only two scenes of the first act, but it propels much of the conflict of the play.

The Sleepy Lagoon Murder and the Zoot Suit Riots
Valdez's play is loosely inspired by the events surrounding a 1942 murder, known as the "Sleepy Lagoon Murder." On August 1, 1942, a man named Jose Diaz (referred to as Jose Williams in the play) was discovered by the roadside, bleeding and unconscious. He succumbed to head injuries later; at the time of the assault, he was intoxicated. Although his injuries could have been caused by a car accident, it was concluded that he had been involved in a nearby gang fight. Public outrage, fueled by sensational newspaper headlines, led to the roundup of hundreds of Mexican-Americans. Henry Leyvas (Henry Reyna in the play) and twenty-one of his friends, who had been part of the fight, were arrested and charged with Diaz's murder. The young Chicanos wore "zoot suits," characterized by long, baggy trousers paired with long-tailed coats and long "ducktail" hairstyles, a trend among pachucos, or young Mexican gang members.

In a blatant violation of the gang members' civil rights, the district attorney requested, and the judge ordered, that the defendants be required to wear their zoot suits during the trial and be prohibited from cutting their hair, so the jury would perceive them as "hoodlums." Additionally, they were compelled to stand whenever their names were mentioned, even when the statements were inflammatory or incriminating. They were also denied the right to consult with their lawyers. E. Duran Ayers, the Head of the Foreign Relations Bureau, was brought in as an "expert" witness to testify about the "bloodthirsty" nature of Mexicans, descendants of the Aztecs, known for their human sacrifice rituals. Ayers's official report claimed that "the Mexican would forever retain his wild and violent tendencies no matter how much education or training he might receive." Nine of the men, including Henry Leyvas, were sentenced to five years in prison for second-degree murder.

Approximately six months after the trial concluded, riots erupted in Los Angeles. These disturbances, referred to as the "Zoot Suit Riots" or the "Sailor Riots," were driven by xenophobic sentiments towards Mexican-American youth gangs, further intensified by the ongoing World War II. In the summer of 1943, a significant number of sailors traveled through the Mexican-American neighborhoods in East Los Angeles in rented taxis, assaulting every "zoot suiter" they came across, including women and young boys who did not embody the pachuco image. In response, the police targeted the victims, leading to mass arrests of Mexican-Americans. Although a few Anglos were detained, none faced charges. The local media exacerbated the situation by reporting a "Mexican crime wave," which they claimed was being heroically managed by the servicemen. The riots only began to subside when military officials declared Los Angeles off-limits to all military personnel. In October 1944, the Court of Appeals unanimously overturned the Judge's decision in the Sleepy Lagoon case due to legal misconduct, resulting in the release of the 38th Street Gang members.

World War II
It is no coincidence that the Zoot Suit Riots took place during the height of World War II. Xenophobia, an irrational fear or hatred of foreigners, was heightened by the belief that Americans of foreign descent might betray Anglo-Americans. To prevent this perceived threat, thousands of Japanese-Americans, including two hundred Japanese-Latin Americans, were forcibly placed in internment camps across the West. It was not until 1988 that restitution was provided to those who endured physical, emotional, and financial hardships due to the relocation.

In the 1940s, the fear of foreigners extended to various cultural groups. Los Angeles, home to many ethnic neighborhoods and numerous military bases preparing for war, became a focal point for cultural clashes and violence. Ironically, among the ethnic groups that enlisted in World War II, Mexican-Americans experienced the highest number of casualties.

Valdez's Mexican Theatre FormsZoot Suit is an amalgamation of actos (or "protest skits"), mitos ("myth"), and corrido ("ballad"). This blend draws from traditional Mexican songs, dances, folklore, and the political activism seen in Valdez's earlier work with the socially conscious El Teatro Campesino. The play also incorporates a strong documentary element, being rooted in historical events. The result is a musical docudrama of epic scale.

Early in his career, Valdez crafted—often orchestrating rather than writing down—simple and concise political protest pieces directed at migrant worker audiences. These actos typically lasted only fifteen minutes. They featured masks, straightforward yet exaggerated plots, and minimalistic settings and props. Actors often wore cards identifying their generic roles, such as "worker" or "patroncito" [manager], instead of portraying specific characters. In social protest plays, character development is secondary to denouncing injustices against a community. Consequently, Henry Reyna "is" El Pachuco, symbolizing both the tragic, self-destructive nature of pachuco gangs and their victimization by a xenophobic society.

The mitos elevates the allegorical themes of the actos into a spiritual dimension. Valdez developed mitos to realize his vision of "a teatro of legends and myths." In an interview with David Savran for American Theatre, Valdez explained that, to him, myth is "so real that it's just below the surface—it's the supporting structure of our everyday reality." In a Valdez mito, a mythical character interacts with human characters and sometimes directs the play from the stage. El Pachuco was not Valdez's first mythical character; the Aztec god Quetzalcóatl and a precursor to El Pachuco, La Luna ("the moon"), appear in his allegorical play Bernabé (1970). Additionally, a child named Mundo ("earth") is born to skeletal figures in El fin del mundo (1976; meaning "The End of the Earth"). Comet sightings, symbolic sets, and rituals further emphasize the presence of myth in these plays. El Pachuco's mythic quality in Zoot Suit is highlighted by his ability to control the action with a snap of his fingers, and it is confirmed when he rises, Christ-like, wearing a Christian cross and an Aztec loincloth in Act II, scene vii.

The corrido has a long-standing tradition in Mexican culture, adding a folk art element to Valdez's plays, akin to the American musical. Valdez's innovative fusion of these diverse theatrical forms into a new dramatic concept significantly contributed to placing Chicano theater on the American theatrical map.

Brechtian Influences and Epic Theatre
Alongside historical and traditional Hispanic elements, Valdez drew inspiration from the Epic Theatre techniques pioneered by German playwright Bertolt Brecht (Mother Courage and Her Children). Brecht's renowned plays were socially aware works designed to provoke audiences to contemplate his political messages. To accomplish this, Brecht employed "alienation" techniques to prevent audiences from forming emotional attachments, encouraging them to evaluate the play's ideas intellectually and empirically. These methods included placards that informed viewers of key plot points in each act. Brecht also interrupted his narratives with satirical songs that deliberately distracted the audience, preventing emotional connections with the characters. In Zoot Suit, El Pacucho serves as an alienating device, frequently halting the action to address the audience directly. Valdez's play also fits within the Epic Theatre tradition by featuring a diverse range of characters spanning significant time periods.

Mixing Spanish and English
In regions of the United States with large Spanish-speaking communities, the practice of blending Spanish and English in newspaper journalism, radio shows, public signage, schools, and drama has sparked heated debates about cultural dominance—questioning whether one language should overshadow another. In 1978, incorporating entire lines of Spanish in a play primarily targeted a bilingual audience, although non-Spanish-speaking members could easily grasp the context. In Zoot Suit, characters switch to Spanish during intimate moments, teasing, and emotional outbursts. For instance, when the 38th Street Gang defeats the Downey Gang, Tommy joyfully celebrates in a mix of Spanish and English: "Orale, you did it, ese! Se escamaron todos! [you ran them all out!]."

Julia Alvarez, author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent, blends English and Spanish in her novels. She explained that Spanish is "the language of sensations and emotions, of the day to day." Duke University professor and poet Gustavo Perez Fermet, author of the poetry collection Bilingual Blues, agreed, noting that "English is very concise and efficient," while "Spanish has sambrosura, flavor." In Zoot Suit, trial scenes and conversations with George are primarily in English, whereas dance and fight scenes feature extensive passages in Spanish, particularly the insults. Official matters are communicated in English, while "street" business is conveyed in the gang's informal Spanish, known as "pachuco" Spanish, rich with slang expressions.

1940s: The Hispanic community and other ethnic groups face blatant racism from the military, police, press, and judicial system during the xenophobic era of World War II.

1978: Student movements over the past fifteen years strive for equal educational opportunities for Chicano children and an end to civil and human rights abuses against Chicano people in the United States. By 1978, however, the Chicano movement is waning.

Today: Most individuals recognize their legal and moral responsibility to treat all Americans equally. The belief that equality has been achieved has prompted some institutions, colleges, and universities to eliminate their Affirmative Action programs, despite the fact that true equality does not exist for all ethnic groups or all U.S. citizens.

1940s: The United States enters World War II in 1941. During the Zoot Suit Riots, military enlistment is at an all-time high as bases across the nation prepare men and women for the war. There is widespread support for the United States' involvement in the conflict.

1978: Under intense public pressure, the last U.S. troops withdrew from Vietnam in 1973. Anti-war sentiment remains strong in 1978, and many veterans are still viewed as perpetrators of heinous war crimes.

Today: Over the past twenty years, the United States has engaged in several military operations but no large-scale wars. Traditional combat has been replaced by remote weaponry. Military personnel and veterans are seen neither as heroes nor scapegoats but as individuals fulfilling their duties.

1940s: Fashion is quite conservative and uniform; there is little variety in clothing styles for mainstream Americans. Zoot suits stand out as a symbol of otherness, representing Hispanic men's effort to distinguish themselves from Anglo society.

1978: Diverse fashion trends are in vogue, from paper dresses to hippies' bell-bottom jeans. Conventional attire like the standard business suit is deemed "square" or "uncool."

Today: Clothing is more casual than in the 1940s but more conservative than in the 1970s. Extreme trends, such as body-piercing and tattoos, serve as expressions of defiance against mainstream society.

Zoot Suit was recorded on stage in 1981 by Universal Pictures at the Aquarius Theatre in Hollywood. The production incorporated segments of cinematic footage, adding occasional touches of realism. It is readily accessible on VHS.

SOURCES
Barrios, Gregg. "Zoot Suit: The Man, the Myth, Still Lives: A Conversation with Luis Valdez" in Chicano Cinema: Research, Reviews, and Resources, edited by G. D. Keller, Bilingual Press, 1985, pp. 159-64.

Berg, Charles Ramírez. Review of Zoot Suit in the Bilingual Review, Volume 10, nos. 2-3, 1983, pp. 189-90.

Eder, Richard. Review of Zoot Suit in the New York Times, 1979.

Simon, John. "West Coast Story" in New York, April 9, 1979, p. 93.

Watt, Douglas. Review of Zoot Suit in the New York Daily News, 1979.

FURTHER READING
Acuña, Rodolfo. Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, 3rd edition, Harper & Row, 1988.

Explores the progression of Hispanic-American playwrights.

Alvarez, Lizette. "Spanish-English Hybrid Is Spoken with No Apologies" on LatinoLink, http://www.latinolink.com/ life/life97/0324lspa.htm, December 15, 1998.

This site examines "Spanglish" and the use of switching between English and Spanish in dialogue and writing.

Bruce-Novoa, Juan, editor. Retrospace: Collected Essays on Chicano Literature, Arte Público, 1990.

Essays on Chicano, Puerto Rican, and Hispanic literatures.

Electric Mercado. El Teatro Campesino, http://www.mercado.com/grupos/, December 13, 1998.

A website dedicated to Latino cultural centers, featuring several pages on Valdez's theater company in San Juan Bautista, California.

Elam, Harry J., Jr. Taking It to the Streets: The Social Protest Theater of Luis Valdez and Amiri Baraka, University of Michigan Press, 1997.

Details the evolution of social protest in drama, juxtaposing Valdez's work with that of African-American playwright Amiri Baraka, the author of Dutchman.

Huerta, Jorge A. Chicano Theatre: Themes and Forms, Bilingual Press, 1982.

Examines the diverse forms of Chicano drama from traditional corridas and festivals to revolutionary theater.

Kanellos, Nicolás, editor. Mexican-American Theatre: Then and Now, Arte Público, 1983.

Essays on the development of Mexican-American drama.

Mazón, Mauricio. The Zoot Suit Riots, University of Texas Press, 1984.

Historical context and social analysis of the 1943 riots in Los Angeles.

Orona-Cordova, Roberta. "Zoot Suit and the Pachuco Phenomenon: An Interview with Luis Valdez" in Mexican-American Theatre: Then and Now, edited by Nicolás Kanellos, Arte Público, 1983.

In this interview, Valdez discusses El Pachuco from his play and the real-life gang members known as pachucos.

Pizzato, Mark. "Brechtian and Aztec Violence in Valdez's Zoot Suit" in the Journal of Popular Film and Television, Volume 26, no. 2, Summer, 1998, pp. 52-61.

Explores the use of violence in Zoot Suit as a symbol of cultural sacrifice.

Sanchez-Tranquilino, Marcos, and John Tagg. "The Pachuco's Flayed Hide: Mobility, Identity, and Buenas Garras" in Cultural Studies, edited by Lawrence Grossberger, Cary Nelson, and Paula A. Treichler, Routledge, 1992.

The authors discuss the role of violence in the figure of the pachuco, both in real life and on stage.

Savran, David. "Interview with Luis Valdez" in American Theatre, Volume 4, no. 10, January, 1988, pp. 15-21, 56-57.

Valdez speaks about his aspirations, influences, and work in the theater.

Suavecito Zoot Suit Riots, http://www.suavecito.com/history.htm, December 13, 1998.

A website for Zoot Suit clothing that includes a history of the Zoot Suit Riots.

University of Texas's The Making of MEChA: The Climax of the Chicano Student Movement, http://www.utexas.edu/ftp/student/mecha/research.html, December 20, 1998.

This website provides a comprehensive history and bibliography for studying the Chicano movement.

Valdez, Luis, and Stan Steiner. Pensamiento Serpentino: A Chicano Approach to the Theatre of Reality, Cucaracha Press, 1973.

Presents Valdez's insights on the different aspects of social resistance, myth, and celebration that form Chicano theater.