How Luis Valdez Brought Chicano Stories to Hollywood

This week marks our 10th newsletter. I chose to celebrate the work of one of the most influential figures in Latino cinema: Luis Valdez. Long before Hollywood embraced Mexican American stories, Valdez was telling them from the back of a flatbed truck with El Teatro Campesino. He later carried that same spirit to Broadway and the big screen, proving that Chicano experiences belonged at the center of American culture.

I spoke with Valdez and filmmaker David Alvarado about "American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez," a new documentary that traces his extraordinary career and lasting influence. To round out the issue, I've selected three of Valdez's landmark works as this week's streaming and theatrical recommendations: "I Am Joaquin," "Zoot Suit," and "La Bamba." Together, they chart the evolution of an artist who never stopped finding new ways to tell Mexican American stories while opening doors for generations of Latino filmmakers.

Happy Watching,

— Vanessa

Several of Luis Valdez's films are playing at community screenings across the country this month. His first production, from 1969, is a 19-minute experimental documentary short based on the titular poem "I Am Joaquin" by Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales, a Chicano activist.

Playing at NY's MOMA on August 6 and August 10.

"Zoot Suit" marked Luis Valdez's feature-length directorial debut, adapting the eponymous play he wrote and staged on Broadway in 1979. Backed by Universal Pictures, it was released in theaters in 1981. Hailed by film historians and scholars as the first studio-backed Chicano movie, the colorful, stylized musical drama reimagines the Sleepy Lagoon trial, whose wrongful convictions fueled the Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles. Daniel Valdez and Edward James Olmos reprise the roles they originated onstage as the production blurs the line between theater and cinema, breaking the fourth wall and periodically cutting away to reaction shots of a theater audience, as though the story were unfolding live on stage. Valdez earned a Golden Globe nomination for his groundbreaking debut.

Playing in Sparks, Nevada on August 29 and streaming on several platforms.

The Chicano classic "La Bamba" tells the tragic story of Mexican American singer-songwriter Ritchie Valens' meteoric rise in the music industry and his untimely death. Its rock-driven, chart-topping soundtrack and intimate, inspirational tone propelled it to the highest box-office gross of any Latino film of the time. Written and directed by Luis Valdez, the 1987 biopic stars a young Lou Diamond Phillips as Valens alongside Esai Morales, Rosanna DeSoto, and Elizabeth Peña. Set in the late 1950s, it follows the young musician's journey from farmworker roots to rock 'n' roll stardom, with memorable performances of his biggest hits by Los Lobos.

Streaming on Netflix and screening in Los Angeles on August 20.

The spirited documentary by David Alvarado, "American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez," recounts the life of an American icon. The long list of talking heads in the picture, all extoling his achievements, speaks to Luis Valdez's outsized influence on the culture. We hear from Edward James Olmos, Linda Ronstadt, Cheech Marin, Dolores Huerta, Taylor Hackford, Lou Diamond Phillips, and of course, the legend himself, Luis Valdez.

From his childhood in a farm labor camp in Delano, California, to becoming a playwright, founding the agitprop theater group Teatro Campesino inside the United Farmworkers Union, to his career as a screenwriter and director of successful studio-backed films "Zoot Suit" and "La Bamba," Valdez reflects on his lifelong mission to elevate Chicano stories to the mainstream, where they belong.

We hear his story through interviews, alongside archival footage of the Chicano movement in the sixties, scenes from his canonical movies, and narration courtesy of Edward James Olmos' character from "Zoot Suit," El Pachuco.

In a recent phone interview, director David Alvarado and his documentary's subject, Luis Valdez, chatted about how Alvarado was chosen to lead the project, the aesthetic choice to have Edward James Olmos voice a fictional character as the narrator, and the racist jokes Valdez endured on Hollywood sets back in his directing days.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

I would imagine that all sorts of people approached Luis to make a movie about his life. How did you convince him to let you direct this project?

David Alvarado: I met him when I was in college, and he really inspired me. His story as a Latino creator and filmmaker, you know, meant so much to me. But of course, his film "La Bamba" also meant so much to me when I was growing up; my sister and I just loved that movie.

In 2021, I was thinking about doing my next film, and I was just flabbergasted that nobody had ever made a film about Luis Valdez. So I sent a cold email to him and explained who I was. He was open to talking. He later told [me] he'd said no to a lot of folks in the past, and that he also had said yes to people and they couldn't get it together, you know, the funding.

So he did take a chance on me, and, and I've asked him why. His line he tells me is, "Well, I just had a feeling with you." You should ask him why he chose me. Try to squeeze a detail out of him for me. [laughter]

I just got off the phone with David, your director. I asked him a question, and he said, "You should ask Luis that." So I'm curious, what did you see in David that made you feel like he was the right one to direct this film about you and tell your story?

Luis Valdez: Well, I've been going out to colleges and universities since the '60s. And it so happens that about 20 years ago, a student came up to me in North Texas in Denton, and he said he wanted to be a filmmaker. What advice could I give him? And I said, "Go for it. We need you. We need your voice." And it turns out that David took my advice.