by Cindy Ramirez, El Paso Matters
In the dusty labor camps of Delano, California,a misshapen potato and a worn-out work boot ignited the imagination of then 12-year-old Luis Valdez.
Inspired by Marlon Brando’s performance as Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata in the 1952 film “Viva Zapata!,” the young farmworker fashioned his own version of the movie. He called it “Viva Zapato!” – “Long Live the Shoe!” – one of countless stories he would create over his lifetime.
Composing stories nurtured his mind as his hands toiled alongside his family’s in the campo starting at the age of 6, he said.
“You’re not poor if you have an imagination. You’re not poor if you can use your hands to create something,”he told El Paso Matters during a recent Zoom interview from his home in San Juan Bautista, California. “It’s amazing what we used to do without the benefit of television or the internet or anything, you know, we were just as creative. I mean, we were creating our own reality. So, it’s no coincidence that I ended up becoming an artist in that sense.”
Valdez, now 85, is a pioneering force in American theater and film known for giving voice to the Chicano and Mexican American experience. Years after those early improvisations in the fields, he founded Teatro Campesino during the farmworker movement to take theater to migrant farmworkers in the fields. He later wrote and directed the groundbreaking play and movie, “Zoot Suit” and brought Ritchie Valens’ story to life in “La Bamba.”
“Luis Valdez is a trailblazer. He’s an icon,” said Doug Pullen, director of the Plaza Classic Film Festival in El Paso. “And he represents a portion of the moviegoing audience that historically has been overlooked or made into a niche audience by Hollywood.”
Valdez will appear at the showings of “La Bamba” and “Zoot Suit” at this year’s Plaza Classic Film Festival put on by the El Paso Community Foundation. Now in its 18th year, the festival runs from Thursday, July 17, to Sunday, July 27, at the Plaza Theatre and surrounding venues in Downtown El Paso.
Pullen first became aware of Valdez in the early 1980s when he caught the “Zoot Suit” film in a two-screen art house in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The film is a creative recounting of the 1942 trial of a group of Mexican American men charged with murder on limited evidence during a period of racial prejudice. The incident led to violent race riots – known as the Zoot Suit Riots – as U.S. sailors armed with improvised weapons targeted young Mexican American men.
Though “Zoot Suit” is a musical drama, scenes depicting racial tensions and violence are often told through swing music and elaborate dance numbers.
“It made a big impression on me with its theatrical flair, colorful music and that performance by Edward James Olmos,” Pullen said, referring to the actor’s portrayal of El Pachuco in the movie.
The idea of bringing Valdez to Plaza Classic came up in 2023 when Olmos appeared at the film festival with “Stand and Deliver,” Pullen said. “We were elated when he said, ‘yes.’”
Pachuco origins in El Paso
El Paso holds a special place in the playwright’s heart. He performed a play called “Mundo Mata,” about two brothers with different views on unionization during the early 1970s, with El Teatro Campesino at the Chamizal National Memorial in 1976.
More than that, he said, the pachuco origins in El Paso played a big role in the development of “Zoot Suit,” whose protagonist, Henry Reyna, 21, was the Chicano leader of a gang who was wrongfully convicted of murder. El Pachuco, who appears to Reyna as a voice of conscience, advises Reyna as he grapples with his identity as a Mexican American.
“The term pachuco originated right there on the border,” Valdez said, describing the El Paso-Juárez area as a nerve center of Chicano culture.
Pachuquismo was a rebellious Mexican American youth subculture and movement of resistance that emerged in the early 1940s during World War II. Pachucos rejected assimilation and expressed their identity through bold fashion that included long, broad-shouldered jackets and high-waisted, wide-legged tapered trousers known as zoot suits, as well as jazz-influenced music and a Spanglish dialect known as Caló.
Ritchieee! ‘La Bamba’ story of cultural identity struggle
The story of Ritchie Valens in “La Bamba,” he said, had similar underlying messages of struggle with cultural identity, prejudice and discrimination as the musician rose to fame in the late 1950s. Valens, whose real name was Richard Steven Valenzuela, was born in the San Fernando Valley area in Los Angeles County in 1941.
“La Bamba,” a Mexican folk song that originated in Veracruz with indigenous, Spanish, Afro-Mexican and Afro-Caribbean influences, became an international hit song through Valens’ 1958 rock ’n’ roll adaptation. His other chart-topping songs included “Come On, Let’s Go” and “Donna.”
“I wanted to celebrate that. I wanted to let others 16- and 17-year-olds know that, look, this kid did it. Ritchie did it way back when – when nobody had even thought of it yet as rock ’n’ roll in Spanish. But, he did it,” Valdez said. “And he opened the door for Latino rock all over the world. And, so, without Ritchie, there probably would not have been a Carlos Santana or Los Lobos or Trini Lopez.”
The movie portrayed the life and death of Valens, played by Lou Diamond Phillips. At 17, Valens died in a plane crash in 1959 alongside musicians Buddy Holly and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson.
“La Bamba” and “Zoot Suit” were added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
‘Cornucopia of riches’
Decades later, Valdez’s legacy stretches across dozens of plays, films and books.
But the message at the heart of his work remains as relevant as ever. As the United States continues to be shaped and reshaped by immigration, Valdez says new generations of Latinos are still navigating the same struggles their ancestors faced.
“People just arrived last night, and they’re going to the experiences that our grandparents, or great grandparents, went through 100 years ago,” Valdez said.
Immigrants, he said, are too often viewed only as laborers and not as the teachers, scientists, artists and professionals many have become.
“What we as Latinos, bring to the table is the cornucopia of riches. You know, not just our food, not just our music, not just the beauty of our people, but our intelligence and our history and our point of view,” he said.
“That can only be rewarded and given to the rest of the world through our arts, through our music, through our plays, through our novels, through our movies,” he continued. “And, so, that’s been the story of my life, to try to use that to empower people to become artists.”
‘I didn’t know I was a playwright’
Born in Delano, California, in 1940, Valdez is the third of 10 siblings to migrant farmworker parents who followed the crops year round throughout California. He graduated from San José State University in 1964 with a degree in English after changing his major from math and physics.
Valdez worked as an organizer for the farmworkers union during the Delano Grape Strike led by civil rights activist César Chávez in 1965. It was there he created Teatro Campesino with, for and about farmworkers alongside his brothers and cousins.
“We tried to put on plays indoors, outdoors, in an old barn. It didn’t matter. And then my cousins got bored, and they said, ‘We don’t know what to say.’ So, I’d write one-liners on a little piece of paper and say, ‘Say this,’” Valdez recounted. “And then, eventually, I’d be at half a page. And eventually, I was writing one-page scripts for my cousins and my friends. I didn’t know I was a playwright. I was just giving the words that they needed to say and I really loved it.”
Teatro Campesino went on its first national tour in 1967.In 1969, the theater put on a production of “I Am Joaquin,” the poem about dual Mexican and Chicano identity by Mexican American boxer, poet and political activist Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzalez. A friend suggested they record it, and using a 16mm camera, the production became a 20-minute film which was later included in the National Film Registry.
Valdez was recently honored with the 2025 Nonprofit of the Year award for his theater company by California State Senator John Laird. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Mexican American Film and Television Festival in 2023. In 2015, President Obama honored him with a National Medal of Arts.
Valdez’s wife, Lupe Trujillo-Valdez, a costume designer and actress, has been involved with Teatro Campesino since its early days. Valdez and Trujillo have three children: Anahuac Valdez, a cinematographer, Kinan Valdez, a director, and Lakin Valdez, an actor, writer and director.
Inspiring generations of Chicano greats
While Valdez wrote and directed numerous plays for El Teatro Campesino, he also inspired generations of artists who today continue to popularize Chicano theater.
Among them is El Paso author, playwright and director Octavio Solis, who showcased his play, “Prospect,” at Teatro Campesino in 1993. Solis recalled that the play’s director dropped out before it premiered. He nervously called Valdez.
“It was a very short conversation. I asked him if I could direct it and without hesitation he said, ‘Sure, why not? I direct all my plays,” said Solis, whose book “Retablos: Stories from a Life Lived Along the Border,” was featured by the El Paso Matters Book Club.
Solis had been advised to be prepared for numerous notes from Valdez. He was surprised when there were only two notes: Move a seat for greater visibility of a character and consider what was “eating the main character.” That helped Solis focus his story, he said.
“Prospect” explores the human desire for success through four characters during a night of excesses.
“I’m grateful he let this play play in his theater,” Solis said. “And without hesitation because I wrote the most profane play ever culminating in a sex act meant to be sacred and moving. That he had faith in me meant the world.”
Solis called Valdez a trailblazing playwright and filmmaker – and not just for the Chicanos and Mexican Americans to whom he gave a voice.
“‘La Bamba’ and ‘Zoot Suit’ are landmark films that are not just amazing but the first that made us visible – visible to ourselves and the greater community,” Solis said. “For me to have someone be out there in the world telling these stories meant a great deal to me.”
PLAZA CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL
What: 18th annual El Paso Community Foundation Plaza Classic Film Festival with more than 100 film screenings and the Local Flavor Showcase highlighting regional filmmakers.
When: Thursday, July 17-Sunday, July 27
Where: Plaza Theatre and surrounding venues Downtown
Special appearances:
- Actor Veronica Cartwright will appear with two of her most legendary movies: “Alien” at 7 p.m. Friday, July 25, and “The Birds” at 3:30 pm Saturday, July 26, at the Plaza Theatre. Tickets are $10.
- Writer/director Luis Valdez will appear for on-stage interviews before two of his classic movies: “La Bamba” at 7 p.m. Friday, July 18, and “Zoot Suit” at 3 p.m. Saturday, July 19, at the Plaza Theatre. Tickets are $10.
Tickets, schedule and information: plazaclassic.com
LUIS VALDEZ CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
El Teatro Campesino:The farmworker’s theater was founded by Valdez in 1965 amid the United Farm Workers protests and the Great Delano Grape Strike in California, taking skits and short plays to migrants in the fields. Now celebrating its 60th year, the brick-and-mortar theater is located in San Juan Bautista, California.
‘I Am Joaquin’: Valdez produced “I Am Joaquin” based on the poem about having dual cultural identities by Mexican American poet and political activist Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzalez at Teatro Campesino. He later created a 20-minute film of the production.
‘Zoot Suit’: Premiering as a play written and directed by Valdez at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in 1978, the story is based on the landmark Sleepy Lagoon trial of 1942. A group of Mexican American young men were on trial for murder in a case that led to the Zoot Suit riots. It was the first Chicano play on Broadway and later the first Chicano major feature film in the 1981 movie starring Daniel Valdez, Edward James Olmos and Tyne Daly.
‘La Bamba’: Valdez wrote and directed the story of Mexican American rock star Ritchie Valens, who died in a plane crash in 1959 at the age of 17. The 1987 movie starred Lou Diamond Phillips and Esai Morales.
‘Corridos: Tales of Passion and Revolution’: Valdez adapted his play for PBS Television in association with El Teatro Campesino in 1987 starring Linda Ronstadt. It won the coveted and prestigious George Peabody Award.
‘The Cisco Kid’: Valdez co-wrote and directed the TNT television movie about the two friends who escaped prison (Jimmy Smits as the Cisco Kid and Cheech Marin as Pancho) while still chained to each other. The Western comedy premiered in 1994.
Books: His latest anthology, “Mummified Deer and Other Plays,” was recently published by Arte Publico Press. “Theater of the Sphere: The Vibrant Being,” centers on Valdez’s principles and framework around his work as a playwright and teacher. His older collections include “Zoot Suit and Other Plays” and “Early Works: Actos, Bernabe & Pensamiento Serpentino.”
Awards: “La Bamba,” “Zoot Suit” and “I Am Joaquin” are included in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry and deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.” Among other honors, Valdez has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Arts, the Governor’s Award from the California Arts Council and Mexico’s Aguila Azteca Award.
More information: Luis Valdez: El Teatro Campesino
This article first appeared on El Paso Matters and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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