Portal:Hispanic and Latino Americans/Selected Individual/42

Luis Valdez (born June 26, 1940) is an American playwright, actor, writer and film director. Regarded as the father of Chicano theater in the United States, Valdez is best known for his play Zoot Suit, his movie La Bamba, and his creation of El Teatro Campesino. A pioneer in the Chicano Movement, Valdez broadened the scope of theatre and arts of the Chicano community.

Luis Valdez was born in Delano, California to migrant farm worker parents. The second of ten children in his family, Valdez began to work in the fields at the age of six. Throughout his childhood, the family moved from harvest to harvest around the central valleys of California. Due to this peripatetic existence, he attended many different schools before the family finally settled in San Jose, California. (more...)