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The Woman in the Zoot Suit: Gender, Nationalism, and the Cultural Politics of Memory

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This book is a historical work which covers the topic of Women and Zoot Suits from World War II to the Chicano Movement. Ramirez emphasizes the participation of women in zoot suit culture during WWII making use of the few sources that exist, including some important ones that have been neglected by other academics on the subject. Throughout the book, Ramirez employs feminist analysis, which had not been utilized to understand the female participants of zoot suit culture to this extent. Feminist analysis was popular among scholars and artists during the late 1970s and 1980s to interpret the sources from the Chicano Movement which either neglected or caricaturized the female counterparts of pachucos. In this sense, Ramirez first summarizes feminist interpretations of sources from the Chicano Movement and then adds her own additional level of analysis. Overall, this is an excellent monograph which should be read by all students of Mexican American History, World War II History, and 20th century U.S. History.