Luis Valdez

Luis Valdez is regarded as one of the most important and influential American playwrights and filmmakers living today. His internationally renowned, and Obie award winning theater company, El Teatro Campesino (The Farm Workers’ Theater) was founded by Valdez in 1965 – in the heat of the United Farm Workers (UFW) struggle and the Great Delano Grape Strike in California’s Central Valley. His involvement with Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the early Chicano Movement left an indelible mark that remained embodied in all his work even after he left the UFW in 1967.

In 1978, he wrote and directed “Zoot Suit,” the play that reexamines the “Sleepy Lagoon Trial of 1942” and the “Zoot Suit Riots of 1943”, two of the darkest moments in LA urban history. It is considered a masterpiece of the American Theater as well as the first Chicano play on Broadway and the first Chicano major feature film. Valdez’s numerous feature film and television credits include, among others, the 1987 box office hit film “La Bamba” starring Lou Diamonds Phillips.

Valdez’s hard work and long creative career have won him countless awards including the prestigious George Peabody Award for excellence in television, the Presidential Medal of the Arts, the Governor’s Award for the California Arts Council, and Mexico’s prestigious Aguila Azteca Award given to individuals whose work promotes cultural excellence and exchange between US and Mexico. In September 2016, he was awarded the National Medal of the Arts by President Obama at the White House.