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Discuss one way in which the play Zoot Suit , as a whole, serves as a corrective tothe ways that the courts and the media treat Chicanos within the play.

Zoot Suit is a fictionalized version of the real-life Sleepy Lagoon murder trial when a group of Chicano

youths were charged with a murder that they did not commit and the Zoot Suit Riots . Henry Reyna(inspired by real-life defendant Henry Leyvas ) is a Zoot Suiter " Pachuco " On his last night of freedombefore beginning his Naval service he and his "gang" are accused of the murder of a rival "gangster"

after a party. Unfairly prosecuted, the entire gang is thrown in jail for a murder they did not commit. Theplay is set in the barrios of Los Angeles, California in the early 1940s against the backdrop of the ZootSuit Riots and World War II . The play is narrated throughout and most of the songs are performed by ElPachuco, an idealized Zoot Suiter. El Pachuco functions as a "Greek Chorus", commenting on the actionof the play, and functioning as Henry's conscience. While in prison, Henry develops a crush on the legalaide working on his case, and his brother is wounded in the infamous Zoot Suit riots. The opinion of the

public is given in the form of news headlines by a reporter who is sometimes a journalist and a radiobroadcaster.

Zoot Suit brings to life a racially-charged trial of the 1940s, in which a group of pachucos ,Mexican-American gang members, are charged and sentenced with the murder of another Mexican American. Playwright Luis Valdez depicts the trial of the Sleepy Lagoon Murder andthe related Zoot Suit Riots of 1943 in a combination of docudrama, myth, and musical. Zoot Suit was designed to reach a larger audience than those targeted by the improvisational skits, or actos,he had produced for El Teatro Campesino , a theater troupe he founded to support Hispanic labor

leader Cesar Chavez's efforts to unionize California farm workers during the Delano GrapeStrike of 1965. Although he reached back into history for a specific Mexican-American incident,Valdez's play concerns the problems of all ethnic minorities in America.

Opening in 1978, Zoot Suit sold out every time it played in Los Angeles, though it met with lessenthusiasm from critics in New York when it debuted on Broadway. In the play, the mythicalcharacter El Pachuco cajoles Henry Reyna to resist the social injustices of an unfair trial andfight for his community; he does so, but the play ends without resolving his future. With itsBrechtian-style protest against social injustice and defamiliarization techniques, such that theaction is controlled and re-directed by one of the characters, Zoot Suit set a new standard for Chicano theater and Valdez was recognized as a leader in American drama. A film version

produced in 1981 starring Edward James Olmos and Daniel Valdez (the playwright's brother,who had played Henry in the stage production as well) brought this vivid portrayal of socialinjustice to movie theaters.

Henry and his gang are charged with the murder of a fellow Mexican-American, Jose Williams, notbecause there was convincing evidence of their guilt, but because of their ethnic identity and their

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radical style of dressing and behavior. The underlying conflict that leads to their arrest and unfair trial isa clash between Mexican-Americans and the dominant Anglo culture. The zoot suiters represented a

small population of Mexican-Americans. They sported ducktailed haircuts and slick suits andpromenaded with swaggering coolness,