Luis Valdez is an American playwright and director who is known for writing about Chicano characters. He is perhaps best known for his play Zoot Suit, about the Zoot Suit riots, as well as his formation of El Teatro Campesino and his film La Bamba.
Valdez was born to Mexican migrant farmworkers in Delano, California, and took an early interest in theater. After attending San Jose State University on a math and physics scholarship, Valdez studied agitprop theatre, guerrilla theatre and commedia dell'arte at the San Francisco Mime Troupe, before forming a farmworker's theater troupe, El Teatro Campesino. He later formed TENAZ, the national Chicano theater organization, in Fresno.
The play...
