Catherine S. Ramírez. The Woman in the Zoot Suit: Gender, Nationalism, and the Cultural
Politics of Memory. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009. xxvi + 229 pp. $22.95 (paper), ISBN
978-0-8223-4303-5.
Reviewed by Emily E. Straus
Published on H-California (August, 2011)
Commissioned by Eileen V. Wallis
Gendering the Zoot Suit
We have all heard of the zoot suit, the suit consisting
of high-waist pants and a long coat with wide lapels, popular with Latinos and African Americans in the 1930s and
40s. Beyond mere fashion, the clothing and the pachucos who sported it served as political and cultural symbols, both at the height of its popularity during World
War II and when it was reclaimed during the Chicano
movement of the late 1960s, 70s, and 80s. The meanings
and uses of the zoot suit and pachucos have changed over
time, redefined from being a symbol of un-Americanness
to one of cultural pride. The vast majority of works,
including those by academic historians, have focused
on zoot-clad men.[1] Catherine S. Ramírez’s book The
Woman in the Zoot Suit changes this focus by linking the
World War II period with the Chicano movement of the
latter part of the twentieth century. By doing so, she adds
gender to the understanding of these periods. She argues
that “la pachuca played a significant part in the articulation of U.S. nationalism and Chicano movement nationalism … as constitutive other” (p. 9).
and Chicano nationalisms. Employing a gender analysis,
Ramírez reveals much about the formation of each and
challenges reigning conceptualizations and representations of Chicano history.
Ramírez’s focus on Los Angeles makes sense for it
was the city in which zoot suits made an enduring mark
on the national consciousness. During the World War
II-era, the zoot suit and those who donned it shot onto
the national stage because of two interrelated events: the
Sleepy Lagoon incident of 1942 and Zoot Suit Riots of
1943. It was no coincidence that these events occurred
in Los Angeles at that moment, because, as Ramirez reminds us, “the war brought Americans of different races
and ethnicities into close proximity with one another
in unprecedented ways on the street, battlefield, dance
floor, and factory floor” (p. 2).
The Sleepy Lagoon incident and the Zoot Suit Riots
have held a great significance for scholars within Chicano studies who have identified the World War II era
as a turning point for Latinos. During World War II and
From the outset, Ramírez’s agenda is clear: to recover
the pachuca, whom she rightfully points out has been ig- the Chicano movement era, scholars, artists, and activists
nored in history books and in cultural production. Us- have asserted, the pachuco played a central role in deing the lens of gender, she examines the heyday of the veloping nationalisms, first a sense of what was Amerzoot suiters as well as the way those zoot suiters were ican and second a sense of what was Chicano. During the war many saw the zoot suit as a badge of “reused by the Chicano movement. To do so, Ramírez unbellion, difference, and even un-Americanism” (p. xiv).
earths the role of pachucas in World War II-era Los Angeles and examines what their historical and cultural ab- Ramírez asserts that in the midst of the Chicano movesence has meant for our understanding of both American ment, “el pachuco’s history was rewritten…. Chicano cul1
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tural workers transformed him into a (or the) father or
son of la causa” (p. 111). The pachucos’ outsider status
helped define American national identity and Chicano
cultural nationalism. Ramírez puts the two in dialog and
uses “one nationalism to relativize and to shed light on
another” (p. xvi).
Because these silences exist in many of the sources,
Ramírez also conducted eleven oral histories with Mexican American women who came of age in Los Angeles during the zoot suit fad to “expose the breadth of
pachuca identities” (p. 28). For example, one of her interviewees, Annie Rodríguez, recalled how her immigrant
father forbade his four American-born daughters from
But, as Ramírez convincingly argues, both narratives
dating pachucos or wearing any of their styles. Ramírez
overlook one key ingredient: gender. While scholars concludes that for parents, like Rodríguez’s, the zoot
have managed to change the narrative of the two events suit style “embodied not only a dissident femininity but
from villianizing pachucos to highlighting the role of a threatening, distinctly American identity as well” (p.
whites’ racism, Ramírez contends that pre- and post- 50). The meaning of the zoot suit extended beyond the
movement scholars, activists, and artists have ignored
clothes.
the fact that the events were also sexist. She reinserts
women into the narrative of the Sleepy Lagoon case and
After completing her analysis of the development of
the Zoot Suit Riots and seeks to understand the mean- these nationalisms, she uses her epilogue to bring her
ing of women’s absence from the traditional narrative. analysis to the present. In this section, Ramírez compares
In addition, she does not just focus on gender in regard la pachuca to the post-9/11 Latina soldier. She notes that
to women as she also discusses the role that masculin- as during World War II Latinos continue to be viewed as
ity played in both narratives. During World War II, the a “menace” especially in discussions about immigration
mainstream and Spanish-language press maligned the from Mexico, but that their roles as GIs also place them
pachucas either as too masculine or as malinches, traitors in a revered status. This thought-provoking closure to
to their people. As outsiders, the pachucas and pachu- her book begs the reader to ask how much has changed
cos helped define the era’s norms. The Chicano move- in the building of American nationalism (and minorities
ment marginalized the pachuca as an affront to the move- role in that development) and how much has remained
ment’s hetero-normative and patriarchal definition of la the same.
familia de la raza. In addition, Ramírez demonstrates
The Woman in the Zoot Suit will appeal to a numhow Chicana feminists reinterpreted pachucas in their
ber
of audiences, including those interested in Califorown works.
nia, ethnic, American, cultural, and gender studies. Her
Ramírez takes an interdisciplinary approach to build masterful reinterpretation of the Sleepy Lagoon incident
her argument. Trained in ethic studies, Ramírez skill- and the Zoot Suit Riots and her comparative analysis of
fully employs literary theory (with particular emphasis the formation of nationalisms come together to make a
on feminist and queer theories) to help analyze a wide va- significant intervention across diverse literatures. Furriety of sources, from traditional historical sources, such thermore, and not insignificantly, the relative brevity of
as archival collections, trial transcripts, and newspaper Ramírez’s book (four chapters with introduction and epiaccounts, to cultural products, such as poetry, paintings, logue) along with the ample use of illustrations make
and plays. In discussing the Chicano movement, she The Woman in the Zoot Suit accessible to many students.
pays close attention to its cultural products, such as Luis Ramírez hopes that this understanding of “the constructValdez’s 1979 play and subsequent 1981 film, Zoot Suit. edness and malleability of national imaginaries” will reThe pages of The Woman in the Zoot Suit are filled with mind us “of the importance of dissent and competing iderich examples of pachucos and pachucas, in photographs, ologies” (p. 148).
paintings, and other cultural productions. Ramírez anaNote
lyzes not only the representations in those sources, but
also their silences. Examining the testimony in the 1944
[1]. Eduardo Obregón Pagán, Murder at the Sleepy Lacase People v. Zammora, the Sleepy Lagoon trial, she goon: Zoot Suits, Race, and Riot in Wartime L.A. (Chapel
expertly reads the silences in women’s testimony. For Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003); and
example, she identifies witness Bertha Aguilar’s cultural Mauricio Mazón, The Zoot-Suit Riots: The Psychology of
and political resistance in refusing to answer questions Symbolic Annihilation (Austin: University of Texas Press,
that might have implicated her male friends.
1988).
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Citation: Emily E. Straus. Review of Ramírez, Catherine S., The Woman in the Zoot Suit: Gender, Nationalism, and
the Cultural Politics of Memory. H-California, H-Net Reviews. August, 2011.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=32735
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoncommercialNo Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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