Overall, Act 2 Scene 6 entitled Zoot Suit Riots was very confusing, yet active. After reading over it multiple times as well as watching the play I started to get the concept of the writers purpose, in which was to show racial attitudes, directed specifically towards the Mexicans, "Zoot Suiters."
Press: The Zoot Suiters, those gamin' dandies . . .
Pachuco: (Cutting them off.) Why don't you tell them what I really am, ese, or how you've been forbidden to use the very word . . .
Press: We are complying in the interest of the war.
Pachuco: How have you complied?
Press: We're using other terms.
Pachuco: Like "pachuco" and "zoot suiter?"
Press: What's wrong with that? 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. (page 79-80)
In this scene Pachuco expresses to the character "Press" in which he was talking to, to tell those people of North and South America as well as all the ships at sea who and what he is considered and not what they consider him or call him more so to Latin Americans in general. The point of Pachuco cutting off the Press dialogue was to tell him not to sugar coded anything, due to the fact that character "Press"and society, during this time was being very racist towards the Latin Americans and the youths dressed in drape clothing.
The importance of this scene contributes to a possible theme as a whole because it shows how the name Zoot Suit came about, and the secretive meaning behind it, as well as the racial profiling towards Mexicans who wore the drapes, later resulting in the Zoot Suit Riots. On another level gave reason to defending the zoot suiters because the intentions of these "zoot suits" weren't meant to be taken as something cruel which Pachuco does well to justify.
Question: What was the point of the sailors stripping Pachuco?
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the point of them stipping Pachuco was because he was Mexican.
ReplyDelete"zoot-suit riots, sparked off in Los Angeles, California, in June 1943 when a rumour spread that a gang of young Mexican-Americans or pachucos (unemployed slum-dwellers who were often petty criminals) had attacked a sailor. For several nights US servicemen beat up any young Mexican they found, stripping him naked so that he was then arrested for indecency, and the riots spread to other Californian cities. Zoot suits were the pachucos' uniform: long, loosely-cut coats with wide, padded shoulders, baggy trousers cut tight around the ankles, thick-soled shoes, and a wide-brimmed hat."http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O129-zootsuitriots.html
The point of them stripping EL PACHUCO was because of his race, but also because they (SAILOR, PRESS, etc.) wanted to remind him that they were still superior. Basically, they were trying the show them who the boss was.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I figured that, just wasn't 100% sure.
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