Act 2, Scene 6: L.A. Dance Scene

The scene starts off with a description of LA, dance scene. You see the Pachucos entering a club where the Navy is also present. The Servicemen then start to mess with the Pachuco girls and everything ends in a knife being pulled out. All this time el Pachuco and Henry are standing off to the side witnessing what is happening. When Rudy pulls the knife el Pachuco freezes the scene in order to take Rudy’s place, at this time the press has joined the action as well.
In this confrontation we learn how the Servicemen and press feel about the “Zoot suiters” and how when el Pachuco takes Rudy’s place arguing with the servicemen he is trying to demonstrate to Henry how he will never be free. To make him understand what is going on in his home town and maybe throughout the world. How people who don’t understand them will never accept them. So they will always have to continue on with their fight and freedom is not a choice because he needs to give up the pachuco way in order to have it. I really like the way this scene was written because we see how el Pachuco stands up to the servicemen and the press to expose what they have been doing expose what they have been doing in order to get the world against the pachucos.

The Pachuco pg. 80: “The press distorted the very meaning of the word “zoot suit” all it is for u guys is another ways to say Mexican.
But the idea of the original chuco
Was to look like a diamond
To look sharp…
Finding a style of urban survival
In the rural skirts and outskirts
Of the brown metropolis of Los,carbon."

With this we understand why or get the real meaning of the zootsuit, and how America transformed it. They were not here to cause chaos but to find themselves in this world.

On page 80 the press says, “You savages weren’t even wearing clothes when the white man pulled you out of the Jungle.” When I read this I was appalled because I understand or actually concluded why the press was against the type of clothing and the statement it made. They did not want the pachucos to move up in the ladder. They wanted to keep the zoot suiters in check because without them being degraded to the bottom of the economy, they wouldn’t have anyone to boss around you can say. The economy won’t work, it’s like the classes: nobles, merchants, and slaves, they could never move up a class no matter what they would always belong to the class even if they became rich that was their label. So that’s what they did with the pachucos they were furious because they wanted to make the statement that they were different. So the press making this comment wanted them to know that they were still savages in the world’s eyes. They had no clothes when they came to America, so the press and servicemen ripping off their clothes in that message that they are trying to make sure they will always know and keep in their head. Which I think is total bull because they never asked to be “saved”. They lived a better life caring for one another, they never knew greed or had any savage thoughts until the white men showed up.

Question: 1) Why do you think the Pachuco clothes were ripped off their body’s.
2) Why do you think the Pachuco took the place of Rudy in this scene?
3) How would have Rudy reacted differently?