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Kill the Pachuco Bastard! Jigsaw puzzle
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$40.00
During his final year at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Valdez began this work depicting the Zoot Suit Riots, an important yet overlooked chapter of American history. From June 3-8, 1943, Mexican-American youths wearing Zoot Suits were targeted publicly by American armed servicemen in downtown Los Angeles. Their flamboyant suits, popular amongst African-American, Latino, and Filipino youth throughout the United States, were seen as anti-patriotic because of their excessive use of fabric while the country faced wartime rations. Yet Valdez reminds us that “the unleashed violence was more related to racial tensions and wartime fears, sparked by political rhetoric and spread by local and national media eager to fan the flames, than fashion.”
Kill the Pachuco Bastard! (2001), which premiered in his senior exhibition, presents us with an imaginary depiction of the moment the riot was sparked. The title echoes the chant by the armed mobs as they flooded the streets searching for targets while LAPD officers stood by as onlookers and participants. No soldiers were arrested; instead, Mexican American youth were prosecuted after being stripped and attacked. Later, the Los Angeles City Council criminalized the wearing of Zoot Suits and The State Un-American Activities Committee launched an investigation into the unfounded belief that the Riots were sponsored by Nazi agencies trying to inflame racial tensions between the US and Latin-American Countries On June 16, 1943, a week after the riots, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt commented on the riots in her newspaper column: "The question goes deeper than just suits. It is a racial protest. I have been worried for a long time about the Mexican racial situation. It is a problem with roots going a long way back, and we do not always face these problems as we should.”
Vincent Valdez’s Kill the Pachuco Bastard is part of the permanent collection at The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture located in Riverside, California. More information at TheCheechCenter.com
• 252 pcs puzzle size: 10.62″ × 13.62″ (27 × 34.6 cm)
Kill the Pachuco Bastard! (2001), which premiered in his senior exhibition, presents us with an imaginary depiction of the moment the riot was sparked. The title echoes the chant by the armed mobs as they flooded the streets searching for targets while LAPD officers stood by as onlookers and participants. No soldiers were arrested; instead, Mexican American youth were prosecuted after being stripped and attacked. Later, the Los Angeles City Council criminalized the wearing of Zoot Suits and The State Un-American Activities Committee launched an investigation into the unfounded belief that the Riots were sponsored by Nazi agencies trying to inflame racial tensions between the US and Latin-American Countries On June 16, 1943, a week after the riots, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt commented on the riots in her newspaper column: "The question goes deeper than just suits. It is a racial protest. I have been worried for a long time about the Mexican racial situation. It is a problem with roots going a long way back, and we do not always face these problems as we should.”
Vincent Valdez’s Kill the Pachuco Bastard is part of the permanent collection at The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture located in Riverside, California. More information at TheCheechCenter.com
• 252 pcs puzzle size: 10.62″ × 13.62″ (27 × 34.6 cm)