If Luis Valdez had only written Zoot Suit and La Bamba and nothing else, his place in American cultural history would be secure. Yet, as David Alvarado’s enthralling documentary reveals, there is much more to Valdez’s singular life and career.

The son of immigrant farm workers, he grew up to make the Mexican American experience his subject, beginning with El Teatro Campesino, the theater company he founded amidst a 1965 United Farm Workers strike. Zoot Suit, his interpretation of an infamous 1942 Los Angeles murder case would follow in 1979. He became a feature filmmaker in 1987 with La Bamba, the rollicking Richie Valens biopic that made Lou Diamond Phillips a star.

Alvarado takes a chronological approach to Valdez’s life, allowing the now 85-year-old playwright to tell his own story, while friends and collaborators like Phillips, Cheech Marin, Linda Ronstadt, and Dolores Huerta add their own observations. Edward James Olmos reclaims his first important role, Zoot Suit’s El Pachuco, to playfully narrate this insightful documentary.