Ritchie Valens

By Felix Alvarado

February 5, 2014

He was no ordinary teenager, He was a teenage singing sensation.  He could get a crowd riled up and singing with him as good as Elvis Presley.  At age seventeen he was destined for greatness.  In the 1950’s no one could have imagined that a Mexican-American teenager would have the music world in a frenzy. Ritchie Valens epitomizes being Mexican-American in the 1950’s.  He also symbolizes the value of talent in achieving success.  The first wave of Mexican immigrants of 1910 had gotten older and the first and second

generations were taking roots in their new found home.  These generations were adapting to the American lifestyle with ease even if they were not seen as fully American.  Many of spoke primarily English.  In 1959 Rock and Roll was still in its infancy.  Bill Haley and his Comets and Elvis Presley had done much to popularize rock and roll but it would take more lead singers to give long lasting life to the new sound.  Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens entered the music stage on cue and made the music even more popular. In Texas the polka was still the dominant music and Tejanos were dancing to it.  In Texas Rock and Roll was making headways into the Mexican-American students in the sixth grade through high school.  Mexican-American kids were dancing to the new music sensation but very few were aware of Ritchie Valens. He was not well known in Texas. Ritchie Valens was primarily a West and East Coast sensation.  He had not appeared in the Texas scene yet. His real name was Richard Steven Valenzuela and millions of Americans danced to his most popular hit, La Bamba an Americanized Mexican folk song.  His last name was shortened to Valens for the ease of pronunciation and for marketing purposes.  From his roots in California he was transported immediate to a much bigger music market in the East Coast.  It was not until the hit movie “La Bamba” that we all learned of Ritchie Valens and much surprised to learn that we had been dancing to his song for several years.  Some call Ritchie Valens a cross-over singer.  He was not because he was the first Mexican-American singer to score in the American music scene and he sang in only in English.  He also symbolized the Americanization of the Mexican-American.

Sadly, on February 3, 1959, at Clear Lake, Iowa, the music died.  Buddy Holly, J. P. Richardson, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens were killed in an airplane crash.  Ritchie Valens may have died in a plane crash that day but his music and legend live on.  Ritchie Valens has a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001 and is recognized in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

Don McLean immortalized this day with his song “The day the music died.”  The loss of Ritchie Valens was a great loss to all Mexican-Americans.