August 9, 1987-San Antonio Express-News
VALENS' IMPACT REMAINS STRONG
The seemingly placid 1950s were a time of hunger, alienation, fear, marginalization and assimilation.
The Chicano world was birthing future artists who someday would question the foundations of U.S. society, but those artists would need a catalyst who would express a bit of hope.
Within an eight-month span, a 17-year-old youth would alight on the world musical stage and utter song lyrics that would produce stirrings of personal and communal pride.
CULTURAL PRIDE
Ritchie Valens, nee Ricardo Valenzuela, probably did not envision becoming a harbinger of cultural pride as much as he wanted to devote his life to rock'n'roll.
He perhaps did not realize the impact that his music had on many of my generation. His rendition of 'La Bamba,' a traditional, jarocho song, spoke to Chicanos in a way that said we, too, had something to offer society. Valens changed the song by giving it a rock 'n' roll beat, a modern feeling.
His was short-lived expression, for Valens died a fiery death in a plane crash with two other rock stars, Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper.
The legacy of Valens has been a topic of discussion amony many of that generation, and it is now a film: "La Bamba."
It is not a music film, even though rock 'n' roll music pervades the film. Luis Valdez, its director, has said that it is a film about an American experience.
It is that, while also being a film about economic and cultural oppression and the price that some must pay in order to 'make it' in our society.
It also is a film about the negative force of isolation and exploitation, about human existence at the vaguest margins of society.
POWERFUL GOALS
Struggle and hatred are constants in the film, yet there also is the power of superachievement as the goal for personal and familial advancement.
Many are the stock stereotypes that move the action, from a newly released ex-convict brother who has artistic talent and no will to a mother who seeks her redemption from her younger son's bright future.
The struggle for Valens from the nadir of a migrant camp is undergirded by his sense of personal talent and a will that seeks triumph.
The short-lived success of Valens is not a joyful one, for he is enwebbed by the rage embroiling the family.
His life in the urban arena was an impoverished wasteland just prior to his success.
It is squalor and shame to the extent that Valens deinies where he lives.
His artistic and felonios brother, himself a product of fatherlessness, can only respond despondently to his own issue.
Their mother has determined that Bob, her oldest son, is worthless and mean, while she showers Ritchie with warmth, accolades and preference.
The film is a tear-jerker, and it had this columnist sniffling at certain points.
By far the best work that Valdez has managed to produce, "La Bamba" is a work that still unleashes a welter of bleak and hopeless stereotypes.
The message is loud and clear: You can make it, but only if you accept a non-Chicano view of yourself.
PERSONAL AFFIRMATION
The strongest statement of personal and cultural affirmation as a Chicano is made by Bob, but he is definitely a loser. A supermacho, Bob can only react to the world, even to the extent of helping Ritchie acquire talismanic protection from an incessantly recurring nightmare of death via a plane crash, only to rip the protection away in a moment of enraged jealousy. Bob is fighting for his sanity, for balance, and the means to such health is the love that the mother showers on Ritchie only. Bob is a flunky for her, and an unwelcome and irresponsible failure to Ritchie. Love is perverse and twisted between the brothers. It is to be manifested via material aggrandizement yet Bob's gifts are ever suspect. Ritchie's dreams are deemed correct and meaningful while Bob's only moment of accomplishment is underrated - his being awarded an art prize.
Aside from Ritchie, the only lovable characters are non-Chicanos, whether it be Donna, the girl friend, or Bob-0, the manager. Rosie, the sister-in-law is too ravaged by her husband, Bob, as played by Esai Morales who manages to steal much of everybody else's thunder and is thus the film's most believable character. Bob is the garbage collector who is told that he merits "$5 a day and all he can eat" at his job, and he is told this smilingly by Ritchie's agent and manager.
QUESTIONS ASSIMILATION
Still it is the ex-convict Bob who questions the wisdom of assimilation, of cultural suicide. There are nuances of culture in much of the film, from snakes to quasi-mystical explanations of the universe by a rustic curandero somewhere in Baja California. Bikers are rough renegades who act childishly when they score pot, as if they were children being given a banana split for the first time. In spite of the limited and very narrow focus of this linear film, it does speak to a time when Chicanos truly were invisible in American society. Its simplicity gives it a power beyond typical fare, and it does show new points of departure for the depiction of Chicanos in film.
Hopefully other films will follow in which both female and male characters can speak to a more rounded humanity within the Chicano culture. La raza is more than clichés, stock tearjerkers and assimilation, for diversity ultimately means personhood and dignity. "La Bamba" is worth seeing. Its pain still is seething in our barrios and migrant camps - a pain that afflicts humanity. Gracias, Luis, for sharing the pain and the promise.