Stage directions tell us that "the giant facsimile of a newspaper front page serves as a drop curtain" and "The huge masthead reads: LOS ANGELES HERALD EXPRESS Thursday, June 3, 1943. The play shows how American society denies Chicanos an opportunity to live or even sacrifice for the American Dream. Well, I am not very much into reading and stuff but after you shared this blog I was intended to read it and I can say it that it was amazing. He is convicted in a rigged trial. ), the resources below will generally offer Zoot Suit chapter summaries, quotes, and analysis of themes, characters, and symbols. The members of the Thirty-eighth Street Gang are present, including Henry Reyna, a twenty-one-year-old Chicano who is the leader of the gang, and his girlfriend, Della Barrios. The battle had many fronts: from the courthouse to the schoolhouse, Hispanics, African Americans, and other ethnic groups educated themselves and the public on the daily injustices committed in the United States. Henry tells the other guys not to mention that Rudy was there that night, as he doesn't want his brother to get in trouble.

Conventional fashions such as the standard business suit are considered “square” or “uncool.”. The boys are suspicious of him, convinced that he's a cop. According to Henry, his brother Rudy, who was quite drunk at the time, got into an argument with Rafas, the leader of the Downey Gang.

The “largest mass trial in the history of Los Angeles County” opens “to put an end to Mexican baby gangsterism.” George raises his objection against the clothing restriction, but the Judge overrules him, saying it is a useful way to identify the witnesses. The dance is interrupted by sirens. Through dance, the members of the two gangs broadcast their dislike for one another, and a fight breaks out at one point. El Pachuco is next seen singing at a barrio dance. El Pachuco is next seen singing at a barrio dance. Zoot Suit Summary (Critical Survey of Literature for Students).

How did Rudy end Henry and the Pachuccos life? In Zoot Suit, the news media functions as an actual character who symbolizes the racist hysteria of public opinion during World War II. It is not a coincidence that the Zoot Suit Riots occurred during the heat of World War II. For Mexican-Americans like Henry, the issues is not just ethnic conflicts, but actual civil rights abuses, and his trial is not unique in its judicial travesties. Radical trends, such as body-piercing and tattoos, proclaim the wearer’s statement of opposition against mainstream society. Lower-middle class home of the family of Henry Reyna, who is arrested for murder during the riots. Act I, scene vii: “The Saturday Night Dance”. Detectives run onstage, as Lieutenant Edwards fires a revolver into the air. Hank Reyna, the leader of the 38th Street Pachucos, yells a warning to Rafas, his opposite number of the Downey Gang, who has begun to manhandle Hank’s brother Rudy. The sense that equality has been achieved has led some institutions, colleges and universities, to remove their Affirmative Action programs, even though true equality does not exist for all ethnic groups or all U. S. citizens. If there is a Zoot Suit SparkNotes, Shmoop guide, or Cliff Notes, you can find a link to each study guide below.

A huge switchblade stabs through a giant newspaper. What was the significance of the Zoot Suit Riots? He also cautions the audience that the play is both fact and fantasy.

This time Hank and Rafas pull switchblades: El Pachuco abruptly halts the play. El Pachuco is the consummate Mexican-American pachuco figure, a zoot-suiter who is tough, cool, slick, and defiant. Leaving viewers with the choice of multiple possible endings, Valdez not only reflects the Mayan philosophy of multiple levels of existence but also offers alternate realities dependent on American willingness to accept or deny reality: a calm Henry and supportive family group united against false charges, Henry as victim of racist stereotypes reincarcerated and killed in a prison fight, Henry the born leader dying heroically in Korea and thereby winning a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor, Henry a father with several children, Henry merged with El Pachuco, a living myth and symbol of Chicano heritage and Chicano oppression. 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. Because it is a musical, with terrific song and dance throughout, it is his most conventionally entertaining play, but because it dramatizes an overlooked episode in American history that reveals a pervasive racism against Chicanos, it is also one of his most powerful and socially relevant plays. Summary. After speaking a few lines of Spanish, he speaks in English, welcoming the audience to the play, and telling us that it is "a construct of fact and fantasy." Smith is even more brutal than his partner, Lt. Edwards. . Scene 4. You can't treat these animals like people." 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. What if I were to tell you that I had Spanish blood in my veins? Zoot Suit Dramatic Devices (Comprehensive Guide to Drama). . The play begins with Henry Reyna and his 38th Street Gang members headed to a local dance.

Before anyone has even spoken, he describes a striking image—instead of a standard theater curtain, the curtain in Zoot Suit ought to look like a giant front page of a newspaper, complete with a headline to transport the audience back to a specific time in American history.

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