Wiser With Age

Tag: arts

  • “La Bamba,” “Zoot Suit” writer on the importance of building community

    “La Bamba,” “Zoot Suit” writer on the importance of building community


    A woman with short hair wearing red necklace.
    Luis Valdez (Courtesy El Teatro Campesino)

    Do you remember reading the play, “Zoot Suit†in high school or watching the movie “La Bamba†(1987), based on the life of 1950’s rocker Ritchie Valens, starring Lou Diamond Phillips and Esai Morales? They were both written by multi-award winning playwright and director, Luis Valdez.

    He is also the founder of the longest running Chicano theater in the U.S. El Teatro Campesino is located in the rural community of San Juan Bautista, Calif. – approximately 150 miles northwest from where he was born to migrant farm worker parents.

    “I was born in 1940 in a labor camp in Delano…the west side of Delano was separated by the railroad tracks,†says Valdez, now 74. “The Asians, Mexicans, and African Americans were on the west side, and the White people lived on the east side of the tracks.â€

    Valdez says he remembers understanding as early as age six, that he was born into a segregated land.

    Years later, in 1955, he remembers the segregation continued. There was a young man who was called “C.C.†who decided to sit in the middle of the movie theater and not in the section designated for “non-whites.â€

    “The police took him away,†says Valdez. “There was no law – it was custom. They released him, and the following week, a whole group went and sat in the middle of the theater. Years later, I went to work with the UFW [United Farm Workers], and my mom said, ‘Don’t you know who C.C. is? He is Cesar Chavez.â€

    It was in 1965, while volunteering with the UFW, that Valdez founded El Teatro Campesino – a theater troupe for farm workers and students. The theater, he says, served as a way to inform, educate and also provide laughter during very hard times for strikers.

    A woman with short hair wearing red necklace.
    El Teatro Campesino performing in the 1960’s. (Courtesy El Teatro Campesino)

    “I’ve seen the evolution of theater, film and television,†says Valdez regarding his continually growing work with El Teatro Campesino, which still continues today. “My focus has been on historical periods so people can know who we are today…now we’re focused on developing the young.â€

    Valdez says it was school that changed the trajectory of his life. It was his mom who sent him and his brother to school one day with their lunches packed in a little brown paper bag – a luxury, he says, in those days.

    “I used to take care of my little bag, but one day my bag was missing,†Valdez remembers back to the first grade. “My teacher said, ‘I took it. It’s for a mask I’m making for a play.’ I forgave her for the bag, and the next week, I auditioned and I got my first part in a play – a monkey. I was looking forward to my first debut in front of the world on a Monday. I told my mom, and she said, ‘We’re leaving Friday. We were being evicted.â€

    Valdez says he was six and devastated. However, that episode in his life was crucial, because it gave him the insatiable desire to pursue theater for the rest of his life.

    “It was at San Jose State University that I began to write and produce,†says Valdez. “I wrote my first full-length play there, and just last month, my son produced ‘Zoot Suit’ – it ran two weeks. It’s come full circle – 50 years after I graduated.â€

    What piece of life advice would Valdez tell his younger self if he could?

    “I would tell my young self, and others, that it’s important to develop people skills…It comes with giving respect when respect is due. Genius is not an excuse to mistreat other people. A true genius is a genius of compassion and humility…I’m happy to say that El Teatro Campesino is composed of 12 people who have been together the past 40 years. They have had other careers but are still pitching in and helping out. In an odd way, that keeps us young. That’s a great feeling. It’s amazing to me. They’ve become maestras and maestros in their own right…We got a slow start incorporating women into the group, but some of our greatest collaborators have been with women. I would talk to my younger self about the importance of that…These are lessons they I’ve learned along the way. We are all human, and we all have a heart.

  • From L.A. Gangs at 11 To Poet Laureate at 60

    From L.A. Gangs at 11 To Poet Laureate at 60


    A woman with short hair wearing red necklace.
    Poet Laureate of Los Angeles Luis J. Rodriguez (Photo/ Arlene Mejorado)

    Growing up in poverty in South Central and East Los Angeles, Luis J. Rodriguez says he found himself so emotionally empty that he joined a gang at age 11. He started abusing heroin by 12, and by 15, he was put in juvenile hall and later prison. It was his love for books, however, which turned his life around.

    At 60, Rodriguez is now an award-winning poet, author, and founder of a cultural arts center which helps youth in the San Fernando Valley stay away from gangs. This month, he was chosen by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to be the city’s second Poet Laureate, succeeding Eloise Klein Healy.

    “I thought they’re probably not going to pick me,†says Rodriguez, who was one of approximately 30 applicants. “I was quite amazed. I also understand the responsibility. I want kids to recite poetry. I’ll do anything to get poetry exploding in Los Angeles.â€

    Rodriguez will be getting an office in the same Central Library where he had once found refuge from the gang world four decades ago. The same peaceful place where he’d escape gunshots, and spend hours upon hours reading, will now be where he writes poems for his city.

    “In the end books saved my life,†says the man who has written 15 of his own, including his most recent memoir, “It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing,†a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

    Rodriguez remembers before he was aware of the power of books, the most eminent force in his life were the gang members who surrounded him.

    “They were tough. Everyone was scared of them. They had heavy tattoos,†recalls Rodriguez. “I wanted to be part of that. I thought being a part of that, people would respect me.â€

    However, in the late 60’s and early 70’s, he says soldiers began returning from the Vietnam War wounded mentally, and there was heroin everywhere. That’s when he says what he thought about gangs began to erode.

    “You used to be able to trust your homies, but I realized you couldn’t trust an addict,†says Rodriguez. “I was becoming just like them. When guns come in to the picture, people start killing people. It wasn’t this homey and loving relationship. It wasn’t a place where people could relate and hang. By the time I was 19, I had lost 25 friends, I was addicted to heroin, my family threw me out.â€

    Rodriguez spent time in county jail for some misdemeanors, where he started writing little stories, but once he was out, he decided he wasn’t going to go back. He opted to return to school instead and even went to night school to better his English.

    “I started doing gang intervention,†he says. “I tried helping my neighborhood, and I actually got shot at by one of the gang members because of my work.â€

    However, Rodriguez remained steadfast, after equipping himself with the power of books. He went on a 35-year mission of gang intervention around the world, which he still makes time for, and founded Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural and Bookstore, with his wife, in 2001.

    “This has helped a lot of kids,†says Rodriguez. “Gang kids show up, and they’re welcome. They are young people that need a relationship to options. The option can’t be, ‘I’m going to prison,’ or ‘I’m going to be a heroin addict.’ They need to know they have gifts and callings. That’s what they need to tap into. That’s the work that I do – tap into their own capacities – build them up from there, so they don’t feel like they’re trapped in their crazy life.â€

    On November 1, Rodriguez will be one of the award-winning authors to speak at the 15th  Annual Los Angeles Latino Book & Family Festival – along with three other poets from Tia Chucha. He says it’s very important for him to give back to his community, because it was the same community which helped get him back on his feet.

    What is the one piece of advice he would give his younger self with the wisdom he now has?

    “The one thing I had was my imagination,†says Rodriguez. “All young people are filled with imagination, but with all the trauma of life and on the streets you lose it. You’re stuck trapped. Don’t lose your imagination.â€