Have you ever heard of Tin Tan?
He’s a famous comedian and actor in Mexican cinema of the 1940s.
He’s remembered as “El Pachuco de Oro.”
Or maybe you are more familiar with Edward James Olmos’s
legendary character El Pachuco
in the 1981 critically acclaimed film Zoot Suit.
So, what’s a pachuco?
In the 1940s pachucos were Mexican American working-class youth
known for their highly stylized fashion
—mainly their sweet drapes, or tacuche—
you know, zoot suit?
They formed part of a multiracial, multiethnic, working-class group subculture.
Through fashion, music, dance, and slang,
they were asserting their own identity and sense of pride
in a society where they faced racial violence, inequality, segregation, and discrimination.
By the summer of 1943,
longstanding racial tensions led to violent clashes between pachucos and white sailors,
soldiers, and civilians in World War II Los Angeles.
This event would be known as the Zoot Suit Riots.
But why were pachucos targeted?
And why were they blamed for the violence that ensued?
Well, because pachuco fashion and behaviors failed to comply
to what many white middle-class Americans believed to be
proper, respectable, and patriotic.
Pachucos were stereotyped as un-American, culturally lacking, violent, and immoral.
This led to Mexican American youths being overpoliced for the way they looked.
But you know who also got down,
but failed to get the recognition they deserved?
Las Pachucas, or lady zoot suiters, AKA slick chicks.
They are celebrated for their contributions to pachuco culture,
but in particular, for the ways pachuca fashions challenged traditional ideas
about how women and girls were supposed to look and act.
Some pachucas refashioned the full on tacuche,
like homegirl Ramona right here.
Others opted to pair their zoot suit trousers with V-neck sweaters,
like these badass homegirls over here.
Others wore the broad-shoulder coat with a knee-length pleated skirt
—very scandalous!
They paired it with fishnets or bobby sox, and wore huaraches sandals or platform shoes.
A dark colored lipstick and a high hairdo, called a bouffant, completed the flashy look.
Pachuca fashion was deemed dangerous because it challenged gender boundaries.
Their fashion was both masculine and feminine and pushed the sexual envelope.
Because of this, they were often thought to be unruly.
They were policed by both their Mexican parents and white authorities.
Pachucas are part of Girlhood (It’s complicated),
an exhibition at the National Museum of American History.
Fashion has always been political and dangerous.
For Black and Brown youth, especially girls, fashion has been a way for them to talk back.
Today, we, as Latinas, continue to use our voices
and our bodies to assert our power and autonomy,
to define ourselves, to be heard, and to be seen … on our own terms!
Our Latina history is American history.