Zoot Suit Essay - Grade: A PDF

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Writing assignment analyzing the play Zoot Suit...

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Zoot Suit Essay The play Zoot Suit suggests three endings shortly after a Reyna family reunion, with Rudy preparing for the Marines. During the reunion, Rudy confesses twenty Marines beat him and stripped him of his zoot suit in the street while Joey was supposed to be with Rudy. Since Joey did not protect Rudy from the sailors and Rudy was wearing Joey’s zoot suit, Rudy blames Joey for his attack and fights with Joey in the street. Rudy admits he did not want to join the Marines, but he felt mandated to join. After the fight, Joey is accused of stealing George’s car by the police. Henry attempts to go outside, but Enrique and Dolores force him to stay inside. The last piece of the scene suggests Henry could either choose to shove Enrique out of his pathway outside or he could stay inside where the police will not arrest him (p. 81-82). The play suggests three potential endings for Henry, the first of these being that Henry could be arrested and return to prison in 1947 for robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. In this scenario, he killed another inmate while in prison and was not released until 1955, when he got into hard drugs and died of a drug overdose in 1972 (p. 82). The second scenario suggests Henry joined the military and went to Korea in 1950. He was shipped across the ocean to Korea in a destroyer and defended the 38th Parallel (representative of his 38th Street Gang) until he was killed at Inchon in 1952. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor after his death (p. 82-83). The third option states he married Della in 1948 and they had five children. Three of their children now go to the university, speak Calo, and call themselves Chicanos (p. 83). Luis Valdez included three distinct possible endings to Henry’s story because in the scene before these scenarios are suggested, Henry faces a choice between going outside to challenge the police or staying inside and not being arrested. Each of these endings change based on the choices Henry made in life. If he had gone outside to challenge the police, he would have likely

been arrested and spiraled into an uncontrollable and lifelong career as a criminal. He would have gone to jail for many different reasons and he would likely have robbed and assaulted someone with a deadly weapon. However, if he had not been arrested for the Sleepy Lagoon murder and his brother had not been beaten in the Zoot Suit Riots, he may have had enough gratitude for his country to join the military. Knowing the police harassed him and his family strictly because they were not completely white changed Henry’s perspective on life. His second scenarios stated he defended the 38th Parallel, which was similar in title to his 38th Street Gang, which he protected well. His family and his gang were all Henry knew to protect and he would protect his fellow military members the same. If he had continued to live the same way he had been before being arrested and had chosen not to shove Enrique out of his pathway, he might have married Della and had five children with her. Their family would have grown to accept that more white Americans were becoming more accepting of different races. Their children would grow up calling themselves “Chicano” instead of “Mexican” or “Mexican-American” and would be allowed into and accepted at universities. The play ends with a few lines representing a powerful message: every individual has many different traits. No person is solely one type of person. Henry Reyna is a born leader, social victim, street corner warrior, zoot suiter, friend, brother, son, and love. He is El Pachuco, the man and the myth (p. 83). Every choice we make defines another piece of who we are. Humans are multidimensional beings with so many aspects of life representing their personalities and these last few lines represent the different dimensions of Henry’s life that made him exactly who he was. The most noble of the three endings is the scenario where Henry marries Della and they have five children. This one is the most noble because society and law enforcement were so

against letting Henry live a normal life that he would have had difficulty turning his life around to raise a family so honorably....