Well worth noting, Catherine Ramirez writes in her book “Woman of the Zoot Suit” about the privileged status that the male Pachuco has assumed in the Chicano imaginary, at the cost of excluding the Pachuca’s role in WWII-era Mexican-American life.  It was something of a harbinger for what followed in making the Chicana silent and invisible during the era of Chicano Cultural nationalism:

“…the conflation of the ideal Chicano subject with the male Chicano body erases Chicanas.

“The embodiment of this ideal is apparent in Luis Valdez’s play and film Zoot Suit.  Valdez has described El Pachuco, its narrator-protagonist, as “a symbol of our identity, out total identity.”  Building upon Chbram-Dernerseisian’s critique of Chicano cultural natuionalism, the film critic Rosa-Linda Fregoso problematizes this character as a male and masculine identificatory locus.  With his shadowy tacuche (complete with broad-brimmed hat and long watch chain), cool strut, and smooth tongue, El Pachuco embodies, in his own words, “the secret fantasy of every bato [homeboy, guuy].”  However, as Fregoso argues, there is a discrepancy between the film’s male and masculine subject of desire and those who are not batos—namely, Chicanas.” (13)

One of the many advantages of Ramirez’ indispensable line of inquiry is that it re-opens the possibility of re-thinking the Pachuco alongside the Pachuca.  Perhaps just as importantly, it also allows us to re-think the Pachuco along less rigid, mythologized lines.