Luis Valdez is considered to be the father of Chicano theater. He is the instigator of the contemporary Chicano theatrical movement and its most outstanding playwright. Valdez has distinguished himself as an actor, director, playwright, and film maker. However, it was in his role as the founding director of El Teatro Campesino, a theater of farm workers in California, that his efforts inspired young Chicano activists across the country to use theater as a means of organizing students, communities, and labor unions.

Luis Valdez was born on June 26, 1940, into a family of migrant farm workers in Delano, California. The second of ten children, he began to work the fields at the age of six and to follow the crops. Although Valdez's education was constantly interrupted, he nevertheless finished high school and went on to San Jose State College, where he majored in English and...