Heather Mundt | Special to The Examiner
Apr 22, 2026
Situated at the northern end of the Salinas Valley, just 90 miles from San Francisco, the town of San Juan Bautista is best known for its 18th-century Spanish mission, immortalized in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 thriller "Vertigo."
But there’s another noteworthy building located a short walk from the plaza. A modest playhouse on Fourth Street, set in a former 1940s agricultural shed, that’s quietly been making history since 1965: El Teatro Campesino, the country's first Chicano theater company, founded by film and theater director Luis Valdez.
Nicknamed the “father of Chicano theater,” Valdez’s untold story unfolds in a new documentary by filmmaker David Alvarado, “American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez.” Winner of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival Audience and Festival Favorite Awards, select screenings of the film begin in Northern California on April 30 at the DocLands Documentary Film Festival in San Rafael and run through May 3. It will also screen on June 11 at Fort Mason in San Francisco.
The film tells a story that spans more than 100 years and depicts the fertile fields of the Central Valley in the early 20th century, the 1965 Delano Grape Strike, and Hollywood in the 1980s.
Valdez, now 85, is the legend behind “Zoot Suit,” a 1978 play that became a film starring Edward James Olmos in his breakout role, and the 1987 blockbuster biopic about Ritchie Valens, “La Bamba."
At its core, the documentary poses a question the country has grappled with for much of its history: Who belongs here?
At its core, the documentary about Valdez poses a question the country has grappled with for much of its history: Who belongs here?
Why every San Franciscan should know the name Luis Valdez
Greg