La Bamba and the lives it changed
The writer-director Luis Valdez in San Juan Bautista, Calif., April 23, 2021. Made for just $6.5 million, the 1987 biopic La Bamba written and directed by Valdez went on to gross more than $54 million. Cayce Clifford/The New York Times.
by Yolanda Machado
(NYT NEWS SERVICE)
.- When La Bamba premiered in the summer of 1987, the expectations for its success were low. The film was based on the life of Ritchie Valens, the Mexican American teenager (birth name: Richard Steven Valenzuela) who was one of the first Latinos in rock n roll. It covered his beginnings as a farmworker in Delano, California, his bond with his contentious big brother, Bob, and the complexities of having to hide his background to make it in the music business with hits like the title tune. At its core, it was the story of two brothers working to achieve the American dream, a dream that was usually reserved for white Americans.
âLa Bambaâ and the Lives It Changed
The actor Lou Diamond Phillips, and the writer-director Luis Valdez look back more than three decades at how the biopic did and didnât make waves in Hollywood.
Lou Diamond Phillips, left, in Battery Park City in New York and Luis Valdez in San Juan Bautista, Calif.Credit.Victor Llorente for The New York Times; Cayce Clifford for The New York Times
By Yolanda Machado
When âLa Bambaâ premiered in the summer of 1987, the expectations for its success were low. The film was based on the life of Ritchie Valens, the Mexican-American teenager (birth name: Richard Steven Valenzuela) who was one of the first Latinos in rock ânâ roll. It covered his beginnings as a farmworker in Delano, Calif., his bond with his contentious big brother, Bob, and the complexities of having to hide his background to make it in the music business with hits like the title tune. At its core, it was the story of two brothers working to achieve