Luis Valdez timeline.

Luis Miguel Valdez is an American playwright, screenwriter, film director and actor. Regarded as the father of Chicano film and playwriting, Valdez is best known for his play Zoot Suit, his movie La Bamba, and his creation of El Teatro Campesino. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Valdez

Although he was born in America, he was raised with Mexican traditions due to his parents being of Mexican descent. They migrated from Mexico and became farm workers in the states. His childhood primarily involved moving from harvest to harvest until he and his family settled in San Jose, California. Valdez had always been active in theatre since he was a young boy. https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/chicanoamericantheatre/?page_id=45

Lupe Valdez is a old American Politician Lupe Trujillo Valdez joined El Teatro Campesino in 1968 as a young Chicana Activist after graduating from Fresno State University. She originated the iconic role of “Miss Jimenez” in Los Vendidos in 1968, and played the role of “Lupe” in the ETC production of The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa in 1969. Lupe designed her first shows in 2010. https://elteatrocampesino.com/lupe-valdez/la-esquinita-lupe-valdez/

Valdez has 9 siblings he is the second of 10 children in his family. One of his brothers is an actor, Daniel Valdez, Daniel Valdez is an American actor, musician, composer, and activist. He is best known for his work as musical director of the films Zoot Suit and La Bamba. He was born in 1949. He later passed away, he was shot when he answered his front door.
https://www.riverdalepress.com/stories/nephew-accused-of-killing-daniel-valdez,78816 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Valdez

He has taught at the University of California, Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, Fresno State University and was one of the founding professors of CSU Monterey Bay. Luis Valdez went to James Lick Highschool and SJSU Colllege. He started college in 1958 as a mathematics and physics major, only one year later he found himself intrigued by the campus's theatre department. Soon, he'd switched his major to English with an emphasis in playwriting.

Luis has never strayed far from his own farm worker roots. His company, El Teatro Campesino is located 60 miles south of San Jose in the rural community of San Juan Bautista, California. This theater, tucked away in San Benito County, is the most important and longest running Chicano Theater in the United States. https://elteatrocampesino.com/about-luis/

El Teatro Campesino was inspired by Valdez's experience with the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Valdez wanted to create a uniquely Chicano theater tradition. He met fellow Chicano Agustín Lira with his theater background and experiences and wanted to create a cultural wing of the United Farm Workers labor union. https://www.studysmarter.co.uk/explanations/english-literature/american-drama/luis-valdez/

Luis is the father of Chicano American Theatre and Film He used to organize plays and puppet shows in his schools and in his garage at home.While in high school, he was a part of the Speech and Drama department and acted in numerous plays. By the time he attended college in San Jose University, he was so inspired and prepared that there he started to write his own full length plays such as The Theft and The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa.

El Teatro Campesino helped inspire a national movement of Chicano theater troupes performing its signature, one-act plays, called actos. Through satire, comedy, and improvisation from farmworkers, they sought to bring awareness to their condition and inspire social action. Valdez believed that theater could be used as a tool to achieve social justice and improve the human condition.
https://www.studysmarter.co.uk/explanations/english-literature/american-drama/luis-valdez/

Valdez was the artistic director and resident playwright until he left in 1967 to write and direct his own works, while still closely working with the company. Typically, Mexican-American people would study and be cast in classic plays written by Spanish playwrights. Valdez wanted to challenge this by expanding theater and arts to include the Chicano experience and reach mainstream media. https://www.studysmarter.co.uk/explanations/english-literature/american-drama/luis-valdez/

One of the last actos that Valdez wrote for El Teatro Campesino, and one of their most well-known, is Los Vendidos. The story follows Honest Sancho, who owns a store that sells robots of different stereotypical models of Mexican and Mexican-American robots that were played by live actors.
https://www.studysmarter.co.uk/explanations/english-literature/american-drama/luis-valdez/

Luis Valdez married a women named Lupe Valdez. in 1969 They had a couple children Anahuac, Kinan, Lakin. https://howlround.com/honoring-luis-valdez#:~:text=Also%20attending%20was%20Luis'%20wife,friend%20and%20brother%20Phil%20Esparza.

Luis Directed a couple of movies, Coco in 2017, La Bamba in 1987, Which Way Is Up in 1977. "La Bamba," the story of Mexican-American musician Ritchie Valens and the highest-grossing Chicano film in the U.S, is the movie Luis is most known for.

Zoot Suit is a movie that came out in 1978 originally premiered at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and was one of the first Chicano plays to be performed on Broadway. The play is a mix of fiction and history. The play is based on the Sleepy Lagoon Murder trials.
https://www.studysmarter.co.uk/explanations/english-literature/american-drama/luis-valdez/

Bandido! deals with the life and times, and subsequent death of Tiburcio Vasquez, the last of the Mexican California resistance fighters. Written in 1979/1980, The events of the play cover the last desperate robbery by Vasquez and his followers in Tres Pinos, California and their pursuit by lawmen and their posses across the state all the way to Los Angeles, where the notorious bandit was wounded and captured.
https://hemisphericinstitute.org/en/hidvl-collections/item/584-campesino-bandido.html

There are three of playwright and screenwriter Luis Valdez's most important and recognized plays Zoot Suit, Bandido! and I Don't Have to Show You No Stinking Badges.

At this time Valdez embraced both titles as an artist and political leader to help enact change for the farmworkers and the Chicano community as a whole. He was passionate in his mission to fight against society's cultural stereotypes and thus brought to life farmworkers' experiences that many were unaware of through performances. https://scholarworks.calstate.edu/downloads/7h149x002#:~:text=Valdez%20embraced%20both%20titles%20as,were%20unaware%20of%20through%20performances.

Bernabe blends a Chicano farmer’s reality with a spiritual connection to the elements, viewed from the perspective of Bernabe, who has an intellectual disability. Pensamiento Serpentino was created in the spirit of the mito (myth), a longer-form play that is meant to explore and create mythology built upon the Chicano roots of Aztec and Mayan cultures.
https://www.studysmarter.co.uk/explanations/english-literature/american-drama/luis-valdez/

Valdez’s most successful and critically acclaimed plays were compiled and released as books in the 1990s Bernabe and Pensamiento Serpentino, Published by Arte Publico Press, this book collects Valdez’s earliest works, a full-length play, and a narrative poem The actos were the foundation of El Teatro Campesino, so these short, one-act plays served to reflect the reality of everyday Chicano life.

Luis' hard work and long creative career have won him countless awards including numerous LA Drama Critic Awards, Dramalogue Awards, Bay Area Critics Awards, the prestigious George Peabody Award for excellence in television, the Presidential Medal of the Arts, the Governor's Award from the California Arts Council. https://elteatrocampesino.com/about-luis/#:~:text=Luis'%20hard%20work%20and%20long,the%20California%20Arts%20Council%2C%20and