The pachuca in Chicana/o art, literature and history: Reexamining nation, cultural nationalism and resistance

This study reframes the Sleepy Lagoon incident of 1942 and Zoot Suit Riots of 1943 by focusing on the participation of Mexican American women. It examines the figure of the pachuca/o (i.e., the Mexican American zoot-suiter) as a raced and gendered subject and argues that the Mexican American woman qua pachuca has been denied what Renato Rosaldo (1989) terms “full citizenship” vis-à-vis nation (i.e., the United States) and Chicano cultural nationalism.; Beginning with the Chicana/o movement of the 1960s and 1970s, a number of Chicano writers and artists pointed to Sleepy Lagoon and the Zoot Suit Riots as crucial moments in the politicization of Mexican Americans and in the creation of an oppositional, rather than assimilationist, Chicano cultural identity. In particular, they praised the pachuco for the role he allegedly played in both events. This study scrutinizes the figure of the pachuco as an icon of defiance and heterosexual masculinity. I argue that, in praising the pachuco as a rebel and maverick, many Chicano writers and artists upheld him as the ideal cultural subject and, thus, defined Chicano cultural identity, community and history in male/masculinist terms.; Drawing from archival sources, such as Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee records and court documents, I provide evidence that Mexican American women (including pachucas) played important roles in the Sleepy Lagoon incident and Zoot Suit Riots. Furthermore, I examine representations of the Mexican American woman qua pachuca in the mainstream press of the early 1940s to argue that she embodied wartime fears of juvenile delinquency, alien subversion and unbridled female sexuality. Lastly, I highlight Chicana art and literature from the 1970s to the 1990s that features the pachuca. I maintain that texts that feature the pachuca reinsert Mexican American women into Chicana/o narratives of cultural identity, community and history.