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John J Valadez

(born January 21, 1966) is a Mexican – American, Peabody Award winning director and producer of documentary films known for exploring the history and experience of Latinos in the United States.

His notable films include: Passin’ It On (POV/PBS 1994), The Last Conquistador (POV/PBS 2008), The Chicano Wave (WGBH/PBS 2009), The Longoria Affair (Independent Lens/WGBH/PBS 2010), Prejudice and Pride (WETA/PBS 2013), War and Peace (WETA/PBS 2013).

= Early Life = Valadez was born and raised in Seattle, Washington, the son of John P. Valadez and Bonnie J. Valadez, and brother to Victoria and Kirt. Valadez is Mexican American.

Valadez graduated from Shorecrest High School in the Seattle suburb of Lake Forest Park. He attended the University of Washington. After a year and a half at the UW Valadez took time off to teach photography at the Rabbani School, a rural boarding school in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh run by the Bahai Faith. After returning to the US, Valadez finished his undergraduate work at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. There he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (BFA) in Film and Television.

=Career= While at NYU Valadez worked as an intern for filmmaker Susan Steinberg on the Emmy Award winning PBS documentary Edward R. Murrow: This Reporter (American Masters/1990). When he was still an undergraduate at Tisch School of the Arts, Valadez directed his first film, entitled Passin’ It On, about the false imprisonment of Dhoruba Bin Wahad, a former leader of the Black Panther Party in New York City. The film aired on the PBS series POV in 1994, went on to win top prize at over a dozen film festivals, and earned an Emmy Nomination for editing by Susan Rostock.

Valadez soon found work producing an hour-long film entitled, Soul Survivors for the PBS series Making Peace. The film profiled Chicano writer, poet and former gang lead Luis Rodrigues, and activist Clementine Barfield. The series was narrated by Ruby Dee. In 2001 Valadez was hired by filmmaker Orlando Bagwell to produce, The Divide, the first hour of the four-hour PBS series Matters of Race. The film explored racial divisions in the small southern town of Siler City and featured writers Eric Liu and Ruben Martinez.

In 2004 Valadez was a producer for the PBS series Visiones: Latino Arts and Culture, and was a producer for the nationally broadcast PBS documentary Beyond Brown. Brown examined the desegregation of American schools fifty years after the Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Ed. Joe Morton narrated the film. Stanley Nelson and Marcia Smith were the Executive Producers. Valadez went on to produce two more films for Nelson and Smith. High Stakes was a hard hitting expose about the Bush Administration’s education policies for the series CNN PRESENTS, and Arise was a history of affirmative action.

In 2008 Valadez produced The Last Conquistador (with Cristina Ibarra). The film chronicled artist John Houser’s quixotic quest to build the tallest bronze equestrian statue every created. The statue was of the Spanish Conquistador Juan de Onate, who explored much of the Southwest and established the first European colony in New Mexico. Many Native Americans were outraged by the monument. They saw Onate as the man who brought genocide to New Mexico. The film aired nationally on the PBS series POV.

In 2009 Valadez worked out of WGBH in Boston producing The Chicano Wave, which aired as the third-hour of the nationally broadcast PBS series Latin Music USA. The film is a history of Mexican American music. Jimmy Smits narrated the series. Elizabeth Deane was the Executive Producer.

The Longoria Affair, written, produced and directed by Valadez, was about the birth of Mexican American civil rights, was an hour – long film for the PBS series Independent Lens. Longoria used the close but troubled relationship between President Lyndon Johnson and activist Hector P. Garcia to explore the how the Mexican American civil rights movement influenced national politics. The film was narrative by Tony Plana. The Executive Producer was Judith Vecchione.

In 2013 Valadez (with Dan McCabe) produced Prejudice and Pride, about the Chicano movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and War and Peace, about Latinos in World War II. Both films aired as part of the landmark PBS series Latino Americans.

In 2015 Valadez finished The Head of Joaquin Murrieta. The film is an entertaining and often disturbing tale that explores a painful and long ignored history: the lynching of Mexican Americans in the southwest.

Filmography
=Awards and Nominations =

References and external links
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