Pachucas

Las Pachucas (Pachuca, female counterpart to the pachuco) were Mexican American women who wore zoot suits during World War II, also known as “cholitas”, “slick chicks”, and “lady zoot suiters”.[1] The suit was a symbol of rebellion due to the rationing of cloth for the war effort. Wearing the longer and loose-fitting jackets and pants was therefore seen as being unpatriotic.[1] The zoot suit was the most salient identifying feature of “pachuquismo”, a Mexican American youth subculture.[2] This subculture emerged during a time of increased racism and the fight for Mexican American rights and equality within American society. Both men and women wore the fingertip coats, but for women it became more than just a style. Pachuca gangs, like the Black Widows and Slick Chicks, with their black drape jackets, tight skirts, fishnet stockings and heavily emphasized make-up, were ridiculed in the press.[2]. This was not just the case for pachuca women in gangs, but pachuca women in general. Participation in the movement was a way to openly challenge conventional notions of feminine beauty and sexuality, especially in Mexican culture.[3][2][1][4][5][6]

Zoot Suit Riots

Known to keep razor blades in their hair, Las Pachucas or ‘cholitas’ were the female counterpart to the male zoot suiter, or pachuco. Las Pachucas were involved in much of the violence surrounding the Zoot Suit Riots, often in documentation being seen throwing things and yelling at law enforcement. Las Pachucas were unique in relation to their pachuco counterpart because of their new found sexual and cultural identity, within both their own Mexican American communities and American society. Las Pachucas feminized the masculine style of dress by wearing, in addition to the coats, sheer blouses, shorter, pleated skirts, fishnet stockings or bobby socks, platform heels or sandals. Their use of make-up and beauty products was another identifying feature, as they wore dark lipstick and used foam inserts called rats to lift their hair up into a high bouffant/up do, and most often sported plucked and thin eye brows. Las Pachucas became a figure for Mexican American femininity and sexuality during the time of WWII and the Zoot suit riots due to their change in dress and use of make up that stood in stark contrast to previous conventional ideals within Mexican culture.[1][2]

Background

For some, during the time of WWII the wearing of the pachuca style was a statement to the communities of their identity, for others it was a symbol of rebellion. The emergence of the coverage and documentation of Las Pachucas, as well as “the appearance of female pachucos coincided with a dramatic rise in the delinquency rates amongst girls aged between 12 and 20 years old”[2] after the Sleepy Lagoon Case. During the case, Pahuca women were involved and like their pachuco counterparts were not given due process. During the time of increased discrimination against Mexican Americans and Mexican culture, this inclusion of Pachuca women complicates their potential status as “patriotic Americans”. Pachuca women face both backlash from their own communities for their newly sexualized styles and contributions to the riots, but also the Anglo communities and they felt that pachuca women were “unfeminine,” and could never conform to or exude Anglo standards of feminine beauty due to their involvement in the movement.[1][2]

Reactions

In the media

In the Los Angeles newspapers “las pachucas were vilified as incorrigible delinquents” Similarly, “La Opinion referred to them as “las malinches”—traitors to established Mexican codes of chaperoned feminine conduct.”[7] In general, the Pachucos were praised in community for taking a stand against the Anglos, but las Pachucas were frequently criticized in media and in community for being so open about their sexuality, and new found social and political identities within American society.[8]

Amelia Venegas, a Mexican American woman and later considered a cholita, was arrested for disturbing the peace and carrying a concealed weapon after cursing at police officials. According to the press, "twenty-two-year-old, mother of a toddler and wife of a sailor, had incited violence by urging a gang of pachucos to attack sheriff's deputies in her East Los Angeles neighborhood."[6] Additionally, newspapers reported that she “attempted to smuggle a pair of brass knuckles to "zoot suit hoodlums" to assist them in their street brawls with sailors.”[4] The Los Angeles Times featured a photograph of her baring teeth and shaking a threatening fist at the camera. The press deemed Venegas a "pachuco" girl, a label that then suggested gang affiliation.[9][10][5][6]

In the community

Las Pachucas faced much backlash from their own Mexican American community. Specifically, la Pachuca, becomes a contested figure in the Mexican American community during the time of the riots and WWII. Some women admired and wore the style, creating their own identities within the American culture and feminist movements.  However, others like Patricia Adler, an Anglo female historian, saw her dangerous and disruptive to ideal Mexican American womanhood, something that was developing in comparison to Anglo feminism ideals. Adler commented that pachucas “scandalized the adults of the Anglo and Mexican communities alike with their short, tight skirts, sheer blouses, and built-up hairdos”. Many women felt this way, because las pachucas and the wearing of the suit was associated with delinquency and rebelled against proper feminine behavior and definitions of Mexican femininity.[11][8]

In art

Carmen Lomas Garza’s “Pachuca With a Razor Blade” is a “portrait of teenagers getting dressed for a dance with one young woman concealing a razor blade in a barrette, no doubt, to be hip and protected”.  As far as the razor blade concealed in a barrette, protection for young women were of the utmost importance, especially during a time of increased violence and racism toward Mexican Americans.[12]

References

1. Ramirez, Catherine (2009). The Woman in The Zoot Suit: Gender, Nationalism, and The Cultural Politics of Memory. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. pp. xi–xiii, 53–57, 66–68, 83–85.
2. Cosgrove, Stuart (1984). "The Zoot-Suit and Style Warfare". History Workshop Journal. 18 (1): 77–91, 84–85. doi:10.1093/hwj/18.1.77. ISSN 1477-4569.
3. Pagán, Eduardo (2000). "Los Angeles Geopolitics and The Zoot Suit Riot, 1943". Social Science History. 1: 223–256 – via JSTOR.
4. Payette, William (June 11, 1943). ""Hobble Skirts Hide Razors: Zoot Suitors Run for Cover But their 'Cholitas' Carry On."". The Washington Post.
5. Escobedo, Elizabeth (2015). From Coveralls to Zoot Suits: The Lives of Mexican American Women on the World War II Home Front. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. pp. 11, 24, 37.
6. Ramirez, Catherine (2006). "Saying "Nothin": Pachucas and the Languages of Resistance". Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 27 (3): 1–33. JSTOR 4137381.
7. "Origenes de Pachucos' y Malinches". La (Los Angeles) Opinion. August 26, 1942.
8. Ruiz, Vicki (2008). From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press. p. 83.
9. Escobedo, Elizabeth (Summer 2007). "The Pachuca Panic: Sexual and Cultural Battlegrounds in World War II Los Angeles". Western Historical Quarterly. 38 (2): 133–156, , 134. doi:10.1093/whq/38.2.133 – via JSTOR.
10. "Zoot Suit War Called Near Anarchy". The Washington Post. June 11, 1943.
11. Adler, Patricia. "The 1943 Zoot Suit Riot: Brief Episode in a Long Conflict". In Manuel P. Servin; Manuel P. Servin (eds.). An Awakening Minority: The Mexican-Americans. pp. 142–58.
12. Carmen Lomas Garza, “Pachuca with a Razor Blade”. Painting, (original in the collection of Sonia Saldivar Hull).