San Diego Repertory Theatre opens its 37th year with its most spectacular production to date: Luis Valdez’s 1978 Chicano classic “Zoot Suit.”

Cast your mind back to the early 1940s, when the world was at war in Europe and Japan, and Americans back home were dancing the swing and listening to Duke Ellington.

In Los Angeles, the problem for Chicanos was assimilation rather than immigration, illustrated by this line that now provokes audience titters: “I’m taking my wife and kids and moving to Arizona.”