THE YOUNG QUINCEAÑERA IS seemingly always in a ball gown. She is in pink, green, blue or other pastel colour, festooned and bejewelled, and with a large skirt that sways in a way that affirms the hooped crinoline underneath. She is beautiful and brimming with excitement for her impending journey into womanhood. Her mother typically accompanies her, helping her with her dress and fixing her hair just so as the photographer captures the moment in front of a city’s landmarks.

The fiesta de quince años, simply called a quinceañera in the United States, celebrates a girl’s fifteenth birthday, her transition from childhood into adulthood. The significance of this day has roots in both Aztec rite-of-passage ceremonies and Spanish debutante traditions, but the quinceañera is uniquely Latin American. The customs vary from country to country, but all share the common thread of family and community. A regular occurrence throughout the U.S. where Latin American immigrant families live, such a milestone event has slowly evolved into its own.

All activities and objects that surround the quinceañera are symbolic, especially the dress which literally reshapes a girl’s body into a woman’s.

The quinceañera begins at a church with a Catholic Mass, the girl typically accompanied by her parents, her godparents and her court of honour comprised of selected female and male friends, siblings or cousins – her damas and chambelanes. She might wear a crown or tiara, a symbol of her upstanding morality – a princess before the eyes of God – or a necklace with a cross or pendant of the Virgin of Guadalupe, blessed by a priest. Her father might present his daughter with her first pair of high heel shoes. He might give her a doll (usually in a dress similar to the celebrante’s), the last doll she will ever be given.

Afterwards at the reception is food, cake and dancing. Such an event, which can include stretch limousines, professional photographers and event planners, can total many thousands of dollars. However, true to the way of dear family and friends, these costs are commonly shared with individuals sponsoring parts of the celebration or donating time to make the day possible.

The day after, the quinceañera and her family informally continue the celebrations with the recalentado (‘re-warming’). Gathered together at a family member’s home with a brunch of food not eaten from the previous day’s festivities, they reflect on the party, reliving their favourite parts.

The following interviews with three Mexican-American women living in the Los Angeles area speak to the memories they hold of their own quinceañeras. Each woman represents a different generation and brings their unique perspective to this important milestone. Each reflects on her passage into adulthood, family and cultural identity, and what it felt like to finally bare the physical and symbolic weight of her quinceañera as she donned her dress for the first time.

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Julie Regalado, Pico Rivera, California, Age 50

My dress was white – back then it was white – but I didn’t wear heels. We wore either sneakers or flats to church and at the party the dad or godfather changed the shoes from the flats or tennis shoes to a small heel to let people know that the quinceañera was now a young lady. That was before the traditional waltz, when the quinceañera dances with her dad.

The court – mine were cousins, males and females, fourteen of them – surrounded me while I did the special first dance with my dad. Then my father gave me to my godfather who danced with me. And then I danced with the seven boys on the court. The symbol for this was that as a young girl, I was protected by my dad. As the waltz finished and the circle around us started to open, I became a young lady. We rehearsed the dance because it had to be in a certain way. First the dad, then the godfather, then the seven boys.

I lived in East L.A. and my quinceañera was in Mexico. It was in Jalisco in a little town called Cihuatlán. It wasn’t really my decision. My parents are first-generation who came to the United States for a better life. But also they didn’t want to lose the tradition, the culture. Because my mom was poor and had a really small quinceañera with just family, it was way different from what I had, where I had my dress, my shoes, everything was planned, and with really traditional food and mariachi music.

My dress was white and poofy, with tiny blue flowers around the edges and along the bottom of the dress. My mother made it for me. I was not asked, ‘How do you want your dress?’

When my friends and I were having quinceañeras the dresses were all white with a little bit of pink or blue or a favourite colour. But very light, not a whole lot of colour, because white signifies purity. I think for many families that celebrate the quinceañera, it was for the adults. They kind of ran the show. I was just happy I was having one.

The blue flowers were my choice though. The cake also had blue flowers. It had to come together with the boy cousins wearing light blue shirts, and the girl cousins wearing light blue dresses, and the cake with light blue flowers too. I was telling people that these are my friends, my cousins that will accompany me as I make the step from being a little girl to being a young lady.

The first time that I wore the dress, it was in a fitting for my mom. My mom was a seamstress, so she wanted it to look perfect. When I tried it on, I felt like crying. I was the last one of my friends that turned fifteen, so I saw my friends here in the States having their quinceañera and how pretty they looked, how loved, and the family… It felt like a dream come true for me. Yes, finally, I had my own.

During the ceremony, oh my goodness, I felt like a princess. That day was the day I felt the most beautiful in the world. I thought I was in heaven. I felt so loved. I had my dress and the accessories that were bought for me and given with significance. I had a little golden cross so that God will always be with me and protect me. And I had a small crown. It was just a little daisy crown that had a little ribbon and the ribbon hung at the back of me.

The celebration lasted four days. I think at the end of the four days, I felt – with everybody coming together and constantly telling stories about me when I was little, what I used to do, how I acted – at the end of those four days I felt like, OK, I’m an OK lady! It started unfolding, how hard everybody worked to come together to make it happen. It was a family effort. Everybody would just start saying, ‘I have a flower shop so I’ll give her flowers. And I’ll get the goats. And I’ll get the decorations. And I know the priest in the church.’ My godparents bought a pig just for me, just for the quinceañera.

The next day we had leftovers and everyone came together to my grandma’s house. And the topic was the quinceañera. That makes it nice, special, to hear that all these people are a part of your life. I appreciated it more because I knew that my mom and my dad were not rich. They came here for us to have a better life yet wanted us to experience the quinceañera ceremony from the beginning to the end.

I am married – a beautiful ceremony – but it doesn’t compare. I still remember my quinceañera; it is my best memory. It even tops me getting married. I have a nineteen-year-old daughter, she had a quinceañera and I tried to make it the same. But I think as time has passed, quinceañera are a little different. The ceremony part has changed a whole lot.

You know, I love my father to death. He is no longer with me, so when I think of my father, that’s the moment that I remember. It was the only time I walked down the aisle with him. My father had six girls, but with me that day, I really felt I was an only child. No one else existed except me and our bond, the experience we shared. He also did a speech of how he saw me grow up and how I was now fifteen. And having six girls and for him to come out with six different speeches, to me it was, wow. I felt that day like an only child.

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Marvella Muro, East Los Angeles, California, Age 41

I’m an only child, but I also had a babysitter with four daughters who were older than me. I basically mimicked them. I think that I just thought it was part of the process. Qunceañeras are also connected to Catholicism, so although I don’t consider myself a devout Catholic, it was part of the culture and I was excited about it but also hesitant because I’m very shy and I don’t like attention. I didn’t know if I really wanted to go through with it, but I just said, OK, what the hell.

I had a dress and flowers; we also had a car decorated with tissue flowers. A lot of people get low riders, but I didn’t. My quinceañera was on a budget. Usually people have them in a hall with a whole court with fifteen people, but I didn’t have that. I just had two little girls, myself, and my godparents, and then we had the party in our backyard. My mom’s co-worker’s son was the DJ, and there was a pot luck and my friends from high school.

The dress is not supposed to be purely white; there are always different colour accents. Pure white is for a bride, so I added peach. Going back to the four girls that I grew up with, they had a collection of bridal books from the late eighties and early nineties. I would look at those dresses and I liked the simplicity. I think that’s why I liked my colours, the off-white and peach. I think it was satin; nice but inexpensive. The colours today are so bright sometimes – they look really great because they are so out there, but again I don’t like attention.

I had my dress made from those bridal books. We got a family friend that knows how to sew to make the dress. She was the neighbour of my mom’s co-worker, a Cuban lady in her sixties in Alhambra. I showed her the picture and she said OK, this is what you can do, and she told us where to get the material. We went downtown to the Fabric District for the fabric and the flowers too.

I made all the centre table arrangements. I turned over a small styrofoam bowl and put fake baby’s breath on it and a candle in the middle with a ribbon around it. I also made the party favours: a little straw hat with a ribbon that said ‘Marvella Muro’ and then ‘Quinceañera..’ I glued a little magnet at back and I burned myself with the glue gun. I think it took two months because it was after school after homework, an hour or something every day.

The ceremony of wearing flats to heels to transition into becoming a woman, no, I didn’t do it. There was a hesitation of having so much attention on me, so I just did the bare minimum. I did have the waltz, but the waltz was with my godparents and then the men came in and they danced with me, so it wasn’t rehearsed. I participated in other quinceañera where there was a rehearsed waltz, and we would rehearse for a month, every Saturday. And it’s fun, but the limousine and all of that… people will spend thousands of dollars.

I felt excited and embarrassed when I first put on my dress. It was the same feeling when they did my hair and put on my make-up. It was the first time that I was allowed to wear make-up, so it was toned down, not too flashy.

My quinceañera was in a small chapel in East Los Angeles, the Santuario de Guadalupe. I think the majority, if not all Catholic churches, have the Guadalupe because if its prominence in Mexican culture. Fresh flowers were offered to her as a thank you and protection.

After the ceremony, I felt different. It was a combination of two things: you are still the same, your body is the same, but at the same time, I was like, wow, you’re fifteen and you’ve gone through this whole process and, you know, you make up new responsibilities for yourself as a teenager. Like social responsibilities as you go through your teens, through puberty, as your body changes. And now you can wear make-up and what does that mean? What colours are you allowed to wear or should you experiment with? I was actually a late bloomer in regards to feelings to boys. I think in Mexican culture, dads are more strict with the girls than they are with the boys. The boys are out all night – I think that’s in many cultures – while the girls have less liberties. I grew up with a single mom so… it had nothing to do with parental restrictions. I think it was just me.

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Natalie Jimenez, South El Monte, California, Age 17

The whole experience was magical. Everyone is there for you.

My dress was a light pink colour. It was poofy at the bottom with a diamond design on the top, and a heart in the middle. We went shopping downtown and bought it at the first store we walked into. I saw it and was like, ‘Oh my god it’s the one.’

As soon as I put it on I didn’t want to take it off. It was a girly feeling, like I was a princess. I honestly felt like a princess. I had hoped that it was going to feel like that; it was how I always pictured my quinceañera to be.

I had a crown, nothing big or anything. But when I put it on I felt like a grown up because they were crowning me in a new stage in my life. I had high heels too. I was in flats and then my dad put the high heels on me during the event. When I was putting them on it was like, OK… you know, grown ups and teenagers are always wearing high heels, so that was basically another step in your life too.

For my court, I had six guys and that was it. I didn’t have any damas, just chambelanes. They were mainly just my cousins. It was easier to get them to do it and we knew their moms for their tux sizes. There were only two that weren’t cousins, but they were childhood friends.

My ceremony at the church was kind of eye-opening because I was in the middle of the church and everyone is on the sides. I had to take the flowers to the Virgin Mary as a sign of thank you and grace, so that was really nice. I think there were around two hundred people. That was just close family – it wasn’t everyone.

For the dances at the reception, we started rehearsing a month before. My waltz was the song ‘A Thousand Years.’ My surprise dances were ‘Greased Lighting,’ ‘Footloose’ and ‘Come On Eileen.’ A surprise dance is when you go from the waltz, which is more formal, to the surprise dance where you get to really express yourself. For the waltz, I wore my big pink poofy dress, and for the surprise dance I wore the same colour and design but basically in a mini version so I could dance.  My mom choreographed the waltz and my dad choreographed the surprise dances. Then the official dance was after that, with a variety of music played throughout the night like cumbia, eighties, pop and rock en español.

My mom didn’t have a quinceañera. One of my close girl cousins had one; she had it in August and I had mine in December. I saw how pretty girls were in their dresses, like my cousin and friends who had quinceañeras. I always wanted one. Seeing pictures of the dresses and the parties, it just always caught my attention.

I feel like everyone should have one. Even if it’s just a small party. It really is a good feeling. You’re with your family, you’re celebrating yourself and it’s not like any other birthday. It’s great. They should have that feeling of going into womanhood. I think because Mom didn’t have one she wanted me to experience what it was to have one. She was dancing all night.

Clarissa M. Esguerra is Associate Curator of the Costume and Textiles department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The seventh issue of Vestoj, ‘On Masculinities,’ will be in stores this month. In introduction, Vestoj Online is publishing a series of articles on the theme.

THE ZOOT SUIT WAS an icon of its time, born from the bespoke draped silhouettes of London’s Savile Row in the mid-1930s then adopted and exaggerated by young jazz-obsessed men and women across America. Amid a period of social and political turbulence just before World War II, the style was not only a means of dandyism, but also a badge of cultural identity for many African American and first-generation immigrant youths. Its exaggerated shape and distinctive details are familiar to many by way of classic images of performers Cab Calloway, Tin Tan and other jazz greats, as well as from the numerous tributes that have since been made to the zoot suit and its original wearers, such as Luis Valdez’s play Zoot Suit from 1978 and popular songs from L. Wolfe Gilbert and Bob O’Brien’s 1942, ‘Zoot suit for my Sunday Gal,’ to Cherry Poppin’ Daddies’ 1997 big band revival hit, ‘Zoot Suit Riot.’

Beyond our pop cultural knowledge of the zoot suit are numerous scholarly articles on the subject. Strong social, political, cultural and dress research have enumerated the significance of the zoot suit against its cultural backdrop of racial tensions during the interwar years. And indeed, the so-called ‘zoot suit riots’ of 1943 were a cultural obsession that headlined newspapers across the country, and masked what was essentially race warfare between whites and Chicanos and blacks with the military dress of servicemen and unpatriotic dress of zoot-suiters.

Yet for all of this breadth and depth of information and various descriptions of this extraordinary suit style, research on an existing example is scarce because so few have survived. Reasons for this vary. As zoot suits required much more fabric to create than a typical suit, its rarity may be partly due to WWII-era restrictions imposed by the War Production Board in March of 1942 to reduce the amount of fabric used in garment construction, effectively limiting the production. Examples of the voluminous zoot suit may have also been remade into other garments, or the suits simply may not have survived use, whether from day-to-day wear or nighttime dances of the fashionable jitterbug or Lindy Hop. Further, during the zoot suit riots that first began in Los Angeles before spreading to other urban areas of the country, servicemen actively sought out Chicano and black zoot-suiters, sometimes even using ‘zootbeaters’ – a wooden two-by-four with nails – to physically tear the suits off of the zooter in a deplorable act of public humiliation.   

Despite the turbulent past of this garment, remarkably, one extant zoot suit survives in the permanent collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. LACMA’s zoot suit is not only one of the only known suits of its kind held within a museum collection, but it is an extreme example of an already overstated style at that. The jacket of the zoot suit has a strong, overtly broad shoulder line, a fitted waist, a long jacket hem that falls below the fingertips and wide, pegged sleeves. To further exaggerate its fullness, the sleeves of this rare multi-striped suit are inset with gores in a contrasting striped fabric. The bag pockets of the jacket only attach at the top flap, allowing them to fly out from the body when the wearer spun. The matching pegged trousers are worn high on the waist and closed with a seventeen-inch zipper fly. For maximum fullness at the knee, the waist of the trousers is deeply pleated; this example has a two and a half-inch knife pleat at both sides of the center front which allows for the pant leg to billow out into a forty-seven-inch circumference knee before it tapers in with curved darts into a narrow cuff, measuring a mere seventeen and a half inches.

Other construction details, such as the quality of the wool fabric, the stitch length at the seams and how details such as the collar and armscyes are tailored, suggest that the suit was made by a seasoned professional tailor. However, the textile is not of the finest quality and the sartorial hand was not typical of high-end suits. For a young man who wanted to don the uniform of hipsters or hepcats, but could not afford a costly bespoke model, this example – made to the tall size of its original owner – may have been semi-custom made, a common method of purchasing zoot suits. In this process, a retailer took the customer’s measurements and sent them to a wholesale manufacturer that constructed the suit to specification. Although these semi-custom suits were more affordable than custom tailoring, the cost was still expensive for most working-class youths who often purchased a suit on credit.¹ The sheer extravagance in the draped shape of this suit suggests that it may have not only been semi-custom made, but also worn for performance, as the wearer would have generated such movement and presence in the pegged ensemble.  

Through thorough analysis of materials in the suit, the suit is likely authentic to this turbulent early 1940s period.² The presence of lead in some of the original trouser buttons suggests that they pre-date recent times. Though buttons could be removed and replaced, the use of both belt loops and suspender buttons in the construction of the trousers supports this date, as men were still transitioning from suspenders to belts to hold up their trousers; it was typical in the 1940s to have both options available. Also, the rayon lining of the jacket ends half-way up the interior top back with exposed seams finished and bound with fabric bias tape, tailoring details typical of men’s suits of the 1930s and 40s.

Upon examination, there is also physical evidence throughout the suit that it was worn and likely danced in. Aside from remnant tobacco found in the pockets when it first arrived, or slight signs of wear throughout, such as loose threads and warping, there are patches at the back cuff of the right pant leg from considerable wear. In the jitterbug, it is common to actively kick your dominant leg – the force of spinning into a kick may have caused the bottom cuff of the pant leg to slip past the ankle and catch on the heel of the shoe. If this is the source for this wear, we might conclude that our original zoot-suiter was right handed. Incidentally, the aforementioned tobacco was also found in the right jacket pocket.

The piece itself was originally found by a collector and jazz enthusiast who discovered the suit in an estate sale of a house that he described as a ‘time capsule’ in Montclair, New Jersey, just twenty minutes by car outside of Harlem, likely where the suit was worn. Harlem was the home of the Savoy Ballroom, a public dance space considered ‘The Heartbeat of Harlem’ by poet Langston Hughes. The venue played jazz music and – unlike the Cotton Club – it always had a no-discrimination policy. Thus, the general styling of accessories for the zoot suit for display was based on research done from photographs of young men and jazz musicians primarily from the New York area.

The deep-seated meaning of this exaggerated style to those who wore them from Harlem to Los Angeles was of self-assertion. Not only did zoot-suiters form a community around this suit, but the pleasure of assuming this bold draped look spoke to young African American and first-generation American men who were systematically underprivileged. But for many white Americans, the zoot suit was symbolic of gang activity or subversion, especially as racial tensions continued to rise, particularly in southern California against Mexican-American pachucos. In 1942, the Los Angeles press began to report on the Sleepy Lagoon Trial against a Chicano zoot-suiter accused for the murder of another Chicano youth; the negative press fostered intense prejudice towards the Mexican-American community. Accounts of pachuco gangs assaulting visiting white servicemen stationed in Los Angeles for deployment overseas abounded, as were rumours of these servicemen seeking out young Chicano women for sexual pleasure.

In June 1943, fights broke out between pachuco zoot-suiters and navy service men, with hundreds of Chicano and African-American youths beaten and arrested. Some accounts even described ‘prowl cars’ which cruised through Mexican neighbourhoods to intimidate the community. Some press sensationalised these ‘zoot suit riots’ with articles entitled ‘Zoot-Suit War,’ and ‘Zoot-Suiters Learn Lesson in Fight with Servicemen.’ The race-related zoot suit riots spread to other cities, such as Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond and Harlem. In June 11, 1943, The Nation voiced dissent towards the press’ unbalanced reporting of the riots in an article under the headline, ‘Hearst Press Incited Campaign Against Mexicans, Promoted Police Raids, Whipped Up Race Clashes.’ In the article, the columnist called out the press for its ‘great smear campaign against Mexicans.’³ This historically left-leaning periodical continues with the bold observation, laden with suggestive comparisons with the war overseas, that, ‘There is a deadly parallel between the pictures of naked Mexican boys lying on the streets of Los Angeles in pools of blood – with grinning mobs standing around – and the pictures one began to see a few years ago of Jews being made to clean the streets of Vienna.’⁴ 

As difficult as this period was for pachuco young men, it was similarly challenging for their female counterparts, the pachucas. Like the pachucos, pachucas also received negative press amid the riots, with various reports of these young Chicano women battling servicemen amid the riots alongside their brothers, boyfriends, or friends, or attacking white women with knives that were allegedly hidden in their hair. These so-called ‘zoot suit gangsterettes,’ ‘cholitas,’ or ‘zooterinas’ were also said to be part of gangs called the ‘Slick Chicks’ or ‘Black Widows.’

Their look was similar to zoot-suiters, and generally consisted of a broad-shouldered ‘finger-tip’ coat, a short knee-length skirt or pegged trousers, fishnet stockings or bobby socks, platform heels, saddle shoes, or huarache sandals, high pompadour hairstyles, and heavy make-up. Latino/a historian Elizabeth R. Escobedo notes that strong lipstick and eye make-up was a means for these young women to actively embellish the Mexicanness of their face.⁵ In some cases, pachucas assumed this look as an act of rebellion. As first-generation Mexican-Americans, they were redefining their place in society – not only as ethnic minorities, but also as women from a cultural heritage strongly dominated by traditional Catholic values. Assuming a more masculine look with the zoot suit allowed these young women to rebel against what was expected as a Mexican female, while also being a means of community for other like-minded Mexican-American women.

Like any curious young adult, some pachucas were confrontational and sexually provocative as reported in both English- and Spanish-language press; however, other pachucas donned the zoot style simply because they wanted to be fashionable and visually affiliated with the latest youth trends. According to oral histories of Chicano women who grew up in southern California in the 1940s conducted by Catherine S. Ramirez, some wearers of the style did not even self-identify as a pachucas.⁶ As the zoot suit grew to be more of a fashion fad, even white females – like white males – began to don the style. In fact, when zoot suits were depicted on white men and women, the emphasis of the style was more on youth, music and dance rather than gang violence. In 1942, the St. Louis Post Dispatch described wearers of the style as ‘usually excellent dancers, perfect gentlemen,’ and that their female counterparts call their zoot look ‘a “juke jacket,” because it’s worn when dancing to the juke box.’⁷ It is worth noting that all zoot-suiters photographed in this article were Caucasian.

This clear double standard of the race of the zoot-suiter was so notable to many in the Mexican-American community – both parents and young women alike – that they actively discouraged the style, especially on women. Some in the Mexican community even feared the pachucas. Over time, the concern grew that all young Chicano women would be generalised as delinquent and gang-affiliated. In an effort to prove false assumptions of their sexual promiscuity in particular, a group of thirty Mexican-American women from various neighbourhoods in Los Angeles came forward and offered to undergo medical examinations to prove their chastity. ⁸ Though self-identified as ‘zooters’ they wanted to demonstrate that their style of dress and sexual actions did not go hand-in-hand. Fortunately, leaders of the Mexican community deemed such extreme measures to be excessive and instead asked that they donate blood to the Red Cross. The Los Angeles-based Eastside Journal, published an article highlighting another group of Mexican-American girls, all of whom graduated with top honours and with brothers or boyfriends in the armed forces.⁹ None were pictured wearing a zoot suit, but this was clearly a way to use the press, which had vilified zoot-suiters, to counteract the hysteria around pachucas.

Although the zoot suit fell out of fashion for both men and women by the end of World War II, underlying social issues of race would continue to evolve. Despite being a short-lived fad, this draped shape is an icon of its time and considered the first truly American suit. It was an exaggeration of the ultimate male uniform, the suit, and in its heyday the zoot suit was adopted widely in various communities throughout the country. During its reign in fashion, it not only granted its wearers, both male and female, a sense of strength and bravado, it also put a spotlight on the true diversity of American citizenry.

Clarissa M. Esguerra is Associate Curator of the Costume and Textiles department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Her curatorial contributions include ‘Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail 1700-1915’ and, most recently, ‘Reigning Men: Fashion in Menswear 1715-2015,’ where an early 1940s zoot suit was a prominent feature.

1. K Peiss. Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2011, p. 25. ↩

2. This analysis was carried out by LACMA textile conservator Laleña Vellanoweth and conservation scientist, Charlotte Eng. ↩

3. C McWilliams, ‘The Story Behind the Zoot War:’ Hearst Press Incited Campaign Against Mexicans, Promoted Police Raides, Whipped Up Race Clashes,’ The Nation, June 11, 1943, p.3.  ↩

4. Ibid., p. 4. ↩

5. E R Escobedo, ‘The Pachuca Panic: Sexual and Cultural Battlegrounds in World War II Los Angeles,’ Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 2, Summer, 2007, p.140. ↩

6. See C S Ramirez, The Woman in the Zoot Suit, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2009 ↩

7. “The Government Frowns on the ‘Zoot Suit,’” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 27, 1942, p. 9. ↩

8. E R Escobedo, ‘The Pachuca Panic: Sexual and Cultural Battlegrounds in World War II Los Angeles,’ Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 2, Summer, 2007, p.142. ↩

9. C S Ramirez, The Woman in the Zoot Suit, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2009, p. 44. ↩