The genesis and evolution of the pachuco in Chicano culture is still a matter for debate among Chicano scholars. What is not in dispute is the enduring influence and legacy of the pachuco as a symbol of Chicano pride, identity, defiance, non-conformity, style, and a perceived threat to genteel, Anglo society.

The earliest personification of the pachuco was popularized by Mexican movie star, Tin-Tan.  It was his style of dress, attitude, and manner of speech, that was the earliest manifestation of what a pachuco would look and sound like.

Tin-Tan was a contemporary of Mexican world renowned comic actor, Cantiflas. Cantiflas managed to crossover into American Hollywood films, because he was a lovable, harmless clown, and therefore, acceptable to White America.

Tin-Tan, on the other hand, represented the dangerous, fringe element of a foreign menace to polite society and the pachuco association with marijuana and the dreaded Reefer Madness. ¡Ay, Dios mio!

The apex of the pachuco was fully realized in the Zoot Suit era of the 40’s. Edward James Olmos, as El Pachuco, in Luis Valdez’s classic play and movie, Zoot Suit, epitomized, and forever enshrined all that is truly pachuco.

As I was growing up in the 50’s and early 60’s, the flamboyant zoot suit duds were replaced with other distinctive clothing, but the mannerisms, slang, outlaw attitude, the unique, urban Chicano accent and the prevalence of marijuana, remained.

So, it was with some disappointment, that the depiction of pachucos, in the otherwise enjoyable Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, on Showtime, bugged me.

The two pachucos, (Diego& Mateo) on City of Angels, just don’t “look and feel” right to me.  Set in 1938 LA, the time of City of Angels, does predate the Zoot Suit era, but not by much.

The hair is all wrong. The pachucos I knew wore their hair in a kind of pompadour, hair piled up, sides combed over towards the top, a ducktail in the back, all held together with generous applications of Dixie Peach pomade.

 For the final decorative touch, they would take a couple of fingers, push them in the front of their hair and then pull them down to have a portion sticking out, like a beak.

The accent is all wrong and they do not speak the colorful, Spanish slang, Cálo. The pachuco accent was far removed from a typical Mexican, or even a Mexican American accent. It was more guttural, urban, with rhythmic inflections and the stretching out of certain words or phrases, for dramatic effect.

A simple greeting like, ¡Horale, ese! , was delivered with a cadence and drama to it, that was pure Chicano street theater. By contrast, Diego and Mateo, sound more like Quaker Heights, not Boyle heights.

The walk is also wrong. The pachucos, I grew up with, walked with an affected, sort of duck strut, toes pointed outward, often with a clenched fist over the mouth. The greeting was a sharp upward tilt of the head—performed to perfection by Esai Morales in La Bamba. It underscored the defiance of the pachuco. It said, “I don’t look like you. I don’t walk or talk like you. I reject all your pinche, gringo ways.”

Physically, Diego and Mateo look like they belong more in a Broadway chorus line, rather than in a police line-up. They look frail, as if they have been subsisting on kale and tofu, rather than frijoles, papas con heuvos, arroz con pollo y tortillas de harina.

They should project the menace of a younger Danny Trejo. That’s a pachuco who’s bad boy image would strike fear into the hearts of cops and win the swooning heart of any lovely Latina.

By the 70’s, the pachucos I grew up with had morphed into the Low Rider car culture. But the vestiges of Tin-Tan, the Zoot Suiters and those that followed, is the “chile picante” that now forms the essence of what it is to be a Chicano.

I was not a pachuco but grew up within the culture. To paraphrase: “Some of my best friends (and relatives) were pachucos.” But I was not immune to the influence of these iconic Chicano anti-heroes.

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by Roberto Leal

“The more things change, the more they stay the same” —Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr

When it comes to amassing a team of talented, resumé rich, creative people to put together a series, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, which premieres on Showtime, Sunday, April 26, is loaded for bear!

It begins with Academy Award nominee writer and creator of Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator), to Oscar winning producer / director, Sam Mendes (1917, American Beauty), who executive produced the original Showtimes series. 

The cast is stellar with engaging performances that include Natalie Dromer playing all the female evil incarnations (Magda, Alex, Elsa and Rio); Daniel Zovatto (The TV Shows Here and From Dusk Til Dawn) as the first Chicano detective in the LAPD; Kerry Bishe as the saintly Molly.  Nathan Lane, in a dramatic turn as Lewis Michener, Daniel Vega’s detective partner. Then there is Amy Madigan as Molly’s mother whose actions belie the religious woman she purports to be.  The rest of the Vega family is played by Adam Rodriguez (NCIS: Miami, Magic Mike), Johnathan Nieves (Shameless) and Jessica Garza (The Purge).

Logan’s sweeping, kaleidoscopic, multi-layered saga is set in 1938, Depression Era, pre-world War II, Los Angeles. It is a story with many fascinating moving parts; murder, racial discrimination, crooked cops and politicians, religious charlatans, Nazis, cultural upheaval in the Chicano community, horror, myth, and Mexican folklore, all culminating in a penultimate, apocalyptic battle between Good and Evil. Logan’s story is a cautionary tale that eerily and prophetically holds up a critical mirror, to present-day America, to remind us: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The breadth and depth of Penny Dreadful: City of angels, is truly breath-taking.

However, within all those moving parts, there is one significant, central gear that makes the narrative machinery move along smoothly: Maria Vega, the strong-willed, loving mother of the Vega family. And fortunately, Logan cast the perfect Latina actress to play this critical, pivotal role, Adriana Barraza. Mexican-born actress, Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner, director, and acting coach.

Barraza grew up in Toluca watching old Mexican and North American movies, in black and white, on Mexican network TV. Young Adriana loved watching such diverse movie stars as German Valdez Tin Tan, Pedro Infante, Carmen Montejo, Marga Lopez, as well as Esther Williams and Fred Astaire.

“I loved the dramas with Bette Davis,” she recalls fondly. “I think I’ve seen All About Eve more than 20 times.” What she admired most about those stars and stories, was they made her laugh, cry and always to dream.

In Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, Adriana plays family matriarch, Maria Vega. She modeled Maria Vega after her own grandmothers.  “I modeled Maria after my two grandmothers who were the attentive parental role models in my life,” she began.

“My fraternal grandmother, Doña Virginia Marin de Barraza, was a very traditional, old-fashioned woman, very Catholic, and always wore black.”

“On the other hand,”, she continued, “My maternal grandmother, Doña Angela Flores de Gonzalez was an eccentric woman with a beautiful house full of light, classical music, birds in the garden, extravagant pets, like herons and large turtles.”

Logan played a huge part in getting the talented Mexican actress involved in this epic project. She had been a fan of the original Penny Dreadful series and an admirer of John Logan’s work.

“I received an invitation, from John Logan, to read the first episode of the new series. I was thrilled,” she recalls gleefully. “John’s uncanny knowledge of Mexican culture—such as Maria’s nahual, the coyote, and the other positive examples of what la Santa Muerte means—that is what hooked me on the project.”

Logan expressed to Barraza his desire and passion to bring to a wide audience the rich, complex, often turbulent and painful history of Mexican Americans in a city that once had a much longer poetic Spanish name, El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río Porciúncula — before it became simply, Los Angeles.

It was Logan’s portrayal of Mexican Americans as not “the other”, but as people with normal every day hopes and dreams like everyone else, that ultimately drew Adriana to the role of Maria Vega. 

“I knew that I understood Maria Vega as a Mexican and as a fighting mother who loves her children and is capable of doing anything for them. Plus, the supernatural world that is familiar to me as I previously mentioned. I am forever grateful to John Logan for thinking of me for the role of my beloved Maria!” And Logan has done a masterful job of capturing the essence, the sights and sounds and what has been documented to be the reality of the Mexican American / Chicano experience of that time.

As with all great stories, and Penny Dreadful: City of Angels is all that and a bag of spicy chicharrones, there is always an overarching truth. Here it’s Logan’s tribute to the struggle and triumph of humanity of the Vega Family and by extension, the greater Chicano community.  The powerful mythical, supernatural presence of Coatlicue, the Aztec Earth Mother Goddess of Life, is embodied in the heart and soul of the family matriarch, Maria Vega.

It has been reported that Barazza has a part in the upcoming Robert Rodriguez superhero film We Can Be Heroes, due to appear on Netflix soon. Did Robert cast her as the very first mature, Latina superhero?

“No,” she came back quickly, “I play Grandma Moreno. I teach the superheroes.”

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels premieres on the Showtime Networks , Sunday, April 26, 10/9c.

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