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Born Luis Miguel Valdez in Delano, California to a married couple of migrant farm workers, Armida and Francisco Valdez. He was the second of 10 children. -
When Pearl Harbor happened, all Japanese Americans were interred into concentration camps, including his dad's employer. His dad was able to take over the ranch and it was important for them because the US Army was supporting them. -
He grew up in worker camps across California and began working in the fields picking crops when he was 6 years old -
His whole family moved to San Jose after he had spent half of his childhood in the San Joaquin Valley -
He got a scholarship on math and physics and went to San Jose State University after graduating from James Lick High School. During his time there, he switched his major to English. -
He directed the play that is set during World War 2 that talks about Japanese-American families sent to internment camps when Japan attacks Pearl Harbor . -
He produced his first full-length play called "The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa" while he was still in university. -
He joined Cesar Chavez to fight for migrant farm workers and founded his Obie award winning theatre company The Farm Workers' Theatre. He created it to educate people about the problems facing Mexican labor. -
Acto (Act) was the form of theatre that he used and dominated his theatre's presentations. An Acto is a short and comic piece that can be performed anywhere.
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Obie Award 1969; Los Angeles Drama Critic Circle Award 1969, 1972, and 1978; Emmy Award 1973; Best Musical Picture Golden Globe nomination 1981; San Francisco Bay Critics Circle Award 1983; Governors Award of the California Arts Council 1990; Aquila Azteca Award, Government of Mexico 1994.
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Ballad of a Soldier (2000), The Cisco Kid (1994), Which Way Is Up? (1977), I Am Joaquin (1969) and Fighting for Our Lives (1975).
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He married Guadalupe Trujillo and they had their three kids, Kinan, Anahuac, Lakin. -
A corrido is a performance technique that can be considered mini-operas. It's the form of telling a story in a musical and humorous way especially when they are about violence and death. -
He wrote Zoot Suit, the story of a real-life murder trial and the zoot suit riots. It's one of his most famous writings and is now regarded as the most significant piece of Chicano theater and became the first Latino written and directed play that premiered on Broadway. -
His Zoot Suit play was made into a movie -
It's about the political end existential issues of acting in theatre and of society and explores the search of a Chicano identity against the stereotypes and restrictions during the 80's.
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La Bamba came out and was about a Mexican American who became a rock and roll star and taught many people about the Mexican American community. -
He met Richard Martin at a museum and thanked him for helping him get through his childhood. He was an inspiration for him because he was an Irish-Mexican character. -
A founding director and professor at the Institute for Teledramatic Arts and Technology at the California State University of Monterey Bay -
His family started becoming part of the theatre, especially his son Kinan and brother Daniel.
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He was awarded a Rockefeller fellowship as one of fifty US Artists in the United States.
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Barack Obama awarded him with the 2015 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities for bringing Chicano culture to American drama. -
He was the voice of Tio Berto, he is Miguel's uncle that worked in the family's shoemaking business. -
https://biography.yourdictionary.com/luis-valdez
https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/historians-miscellaneous-biographies/luis-valdez
https://www.sunsigns.org/famousbirthdays/d/profile/luis-valdez/
https://answerstoall.com/popular/who-is-luis-valdez-wife/
https://tdps.berkeley.edu/luis-valdez
https://www.montereycountyweekly.com/news/local_news/article_1d84fd07-8cda-5395-a535-b9e813f00a9a.html
https://wikisummaries.org/luis-miguel-valdez-authors/
