The United States' annexation of Mexico's northern territories in 1858 marked the beginning of the Mexican-American theater arts tradition. Mexican-American (California Chicano, Texas Tejano, and New Mexico Hispano inclusive) theater evolved as an amalgamation of Mexican street theater arts such as the carpa (traveling tent theater) and the zarzuela (Spanish comedic opera) with a European, Bertolt Brechtian brand of sociopolitical drama. Until the 1960s civil rights movements, however, Mexican-American theatrical arts had not received mainstream recognition. In 1965, two Chicano activists—the young, fiery new actor/director, Luis Valdez, and the powerful farmworkers' organizer César Chávez—teamed up during California's "Great Delano Strike" and founded El Teatro Campesino Cultural (The Workers' Cultural Center). Valdez drew on first-hand experience as an actor/director working in San Francisco's Mime Troupe and a broad knowledge of Mexican drama, history, and myth to train striking farmworkers to perform...