exuality, short dresses and necking in a parked car. The basic irresponsibility of the zoot suit culture is incompatible with those older characteristics. The resulting within-community conflicts recreated in Zoot Suit - senseless fights of "honor" among the pachuco gangs, distrust of non-Chicanos, preening insistence upon stylish "drapes" (clothes) at the risk of one's own safety - these are all mutated parodies of the nobler traditions of the now-rootless ones. Concurrently, Valdez realizes that the sheer absurdity of zoot suit defiance of conventions - defiance of the traditional, defiance of the white mainstream - makes for a very romantic ideal. If he does not share the pachuco's short-sighted "idealism," the playwright certainly understands why it was necessary: to give them some sense of meaning in the world. His problem is that, as the author of this drama, he is unable (or unwilling) to step further back from the situation than his characters. As will be seen later when quoting the final lines of the play, Luis Valdez cannot make decisions
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