FILM / Documentary screening and Q&A
American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez
A look at the legacy of filmmaker and playwright Luiz Valdez
After a celebrated debut at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival and a successful run in NYC this past summer, México Now Festival, in collaboration with CortoCircuito, gives audiences another chance to see this “must-see” documentary about Chicano activist and director Luis Valdez. Founder of El Teatro Campesino, Valdez mobilized California farmworkers through subversive street theater, brought the first Chicano play to Broadway, and directed the highest-grossing Latino film in Hollywood history. Yet his story remains untold outside Chicano communities.
This screening is a rare chance to see his legacy brought vividly to life on screen.
Join us after the screening for a special Q&A with director David Alvarado.
Presented in collaboration with Corto Circuito and Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies/CUNY Graduate Center.
Event Information
Date: Tuesday, November 17, 2026
Time: 7:00 pm
Venue: The CUNY Graduate Center
Address: 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016
Tickets: Free with RSVP
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About the film:
American Pachuco traces the extraordinary life of Luis Valdez, the pioneering Chicano director and activist who staged agitprop theater on flatbed trucks in the 1960s with his troupe El Teatro Campesino, helping California farmworkers win their first union contract. Valdez went on to write Zoot Suit, the first Chicano play to reach Broadway, direct its 1981 film adaptation starring Edward James Olmos, and write and direct La Bamba, still the highest-grossing Latino film in Hollywood history. The documentary (its title borrows Valdez’s own term for pachucos, “street cats with style”) moves through his career with rarely seen footage from his theater and television work, alongside interviews with Valdez himself; actors Olmos (narrating in his Zoot Suit pachuco voice), Lou Diamond Phillips, and Cheech Marin; labor activist Dolores Huerta; and Linda Ronstadt.
What are critics saying:
“A reminder of how our past is prologue.”
“A rousing assertion that Chicano art is as American as it gets.”
“Groundbreaking… Edward James Olmos narrates an informative, archive-packed documentary that charts Valdez’s rise from impoverished son of migrant farmers to director of a Hollywood hit.”
“A stylish, considerate, well-crafted portrait.”
“A deserving trailblazer whose name and accomplishments perhaps aren’t engraved in the American consciousness, but should be… To spotlight a Mexican American pioneer who still stands proud in all the nuances of his identity feels necessarily defiant—especially in 2026.”
