El Teatro Campesino was born in resistance and thrived in defiance. Founded in 1965, the company’s initial purpose was to inspire those in the farmworkers movement who were striking and fighting for more rights for migrant laborers. Over the past 50 years the company has grown and developed into a beacon of Latinx culture. Their current shows are about showcasing the talents of a variety of Latinx artists, but there is always an element of social advocacy to their performance; through it all, they’ve never forgotten their roots.
“El Teatro Campesino was established in 1965 during the Delano Grape Strike. Fifty years later, its founder, Luis Valdez, continues creating thought-provoking productions and nurturing talent from the theater company’s playhouse in San Juan Bautista.
Surrounded by black-and-white photos, colorful theater posters, and a kaleidoscope of other memorabilia documenting 50 years of existence, hang two framed, one-page leaflets. Their inconspicuous location and weathered condition belie the storied history that typed word gave birth to, including an instrumental role in the farmworkers’ movement led by Cesar Chavez, the inspiration that cultivated generations of artists, and a home base in San Juan Bautista that continues providing an atmosphere of creativity.
Typed in both English and Spanish, the leaflets announce the formation of a farmworker’s theater in Delano, Calif. Aware that he was in the arid San Joaquin Valley surrounded by those who stooped under the weight of poverty and not sitting at an office desk in one of New York City’s established stage companies, the leaflets’ creator, Luis Valdez, defied the rules of Broadway by declaring, “IF YOU CAN SING, DANCE, WALK, MARCH, HOLD A PICKET SIGN, PLAY A GUITAR OR HARMONICA OR ANY OTHER INSTRUMENT, YOU CAN PARTICIPATE: NO ACTING EXPERIENCE REQUIRED.”
Interested farmworkers affixed their signatures on a sheet of paper below the leaflets, and attended an informational meeting that night. It was Monday, Nov. 1, 1965—the day El Teatro Campesino (ETC) was born.
Forty-six days earlier, on Sept. 16, Chavez and his fledging farmworkers’ union, the National Farm Workers Association, voted to join the grape strike initiated by the largely Filipino, Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee. Shouts of “¡Viva la causa!” (Long live the farmworkers’ cause!) and “¡Viva la huelga!” (Long live the cause!) reverberated from the church where the vote occurred through the ubiquitous vineyards of Delano where farmworkers toiled for menial wages under the scorching sun.
Valdez, a then-20-something-year-old playwright and actor, had approached Chavez a few months before, expressing an interest to join the NFWA and to create a theater company from its membership. Valdez convinced Chavez that on the stage farmworkers could find their voices that the clouds of dust, the acrid air of pesticides, and grower indifference often silenced. Chavez supported the idea, but made clear that the theater was Valdez’s responsibility.
The informational meeting held on that November night was an inauspicious beginning for a theater company that has existed for half a century.
Eager to explain ETC’s mission, Valdez jumped onto a counter in the NFWA’s cramped headquarters’ office that evening. Those in attendance listened as Valdez underscored the leaflet’s statement that the theater, “would be OF, BY, and FOR the men and women (and their families) involved in” the Delano Grape Strike. When he finished, Valdez took questions. One woman raised her hand.
“‘When does El Teatro start? Is it tonight?’ “ Valdez, in an interview with BenitoLink, recalled the woman asking. He quickly realized that the crowd had mistaken the meeting for a scheduled performance.
Undeterred by the confusion, Valdez called a second meeting the following week at the NFWA’s fabled Pink House, a building behind the union office where he arrived with rectangular signs of cardboard, each threaded with twine. One read, “Esquirol” (scab), scribbled on another was the word, “Huelguista” (striker), “Patroncito” (boss) and “Contratista” (labor contractor) completed collection of low-budget props.
“I wanted to hang these on people, and they didn’t want to,” Valdez said. Alas, Augustin Lira, ETC’s first official member, volunteered to wear the “Esquirol” sign. Playing the part, Lira began hurling insults at the striking farmworkers. A second volunteer put the “Huelguista” sign over his head.”
“El Teatro Campesino: Fifty Years and Counting | El Teatro Campesino,” accessed May 4, 2020, http://elteatrocampesino.com/uncategorized/el-teatro-campesino-fifty-years-and-counting/.