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Act 2, Scene 1: San Quentin
Themes
Key
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
Self-Presentation and Cultural Identity
Public Perception and the Press
Advocates vs. Saviors
Summary
Analysis
Henry reads aloud the letters he and the others receive in prison from Alice Bloomfield, who writes to tell them that she will send them a weekly newsletter, which will outline everything that’s happening on their case. She and a number of other activists have formed the Sleeping Lagoon Defense Committee, which is dedicated to helping with the appeal. In her next letter, Alice urges the members of the 38th Street Gang to remember that how they behave in prison will affect the way the public views them.
Alice’s attempt to change the public narrative about Henry and his friends is important, since the members of the jury who will eventually rule on their appeal currently exist in a society that vilifies the Chicano community. This is why it’s important that Alice has established the Sleeping Lagoon Defense Committee, thereby demonstrating that there are people who disagree with the general consensus regarding the 38th Street Gang.
Themes
As the weeks go by, the members of the 38th Street Gang become fond of Alice, though Smiley asks her to stop encouraging his wife to go around asking for money for their cause. Still, Henry takes a liking to her, as does Tommy, though Henry gets frustrated when he apologizes for his poor vocabulary and Alice says that his vocabulary is “better than most”—a statement that he interprets as a comment on the fact that he’s not Chicano. Accordingly, Henry tells Alice not to treat him any different than the other members of the 38th Street Gang, saying that she should really think about “what it means to be Chicano.” Going on, he acknowledges that the only reason he’s in trouble is because he has always hung out with Mexicans, which is why he identifies with the pachuco image.
Tommy is an interesting character in Zoot Suit, since he is the only non-Chicano member of the 38th Street Gang. The fact that he hasn’t received any special legal treatment is worth noting, since it suggests that white authorities have no sympathy for people who associate themselves with the pachuco image, regardless of race. This is yet another illustration of how much the local authorities dislike the Chicano community. To Tommy, being Chicano is a way of life, one that doesn’t necessarily have to do with ethnicity. To law enforcement officials, though, being Chicano is a sign of criminality—a viewpoint informed by the white community’s intolerance of anything that doesn’t align with its narrow conception of what it means to be American.
Themes
