Los Vendidos

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Los Vendidos is a one-act play by Chicano playwright Luis Valdez, a founding member of El Teatro Campesino. He wrote it in 1967, and it was first performed at the Brown Beret junta in Elysian Park, East Los Angeles. The play examines stereotypes of Latinos in California and how they are treated by local, state, and federal governments.

The characters include Honest Sancho, the unnamed Secretary, the Farmworker, the Pachuco, the Revolucionario, and the Mexican-American. In the action of the play, the Secretary, named only Miss Jimenez (pronounced: JIM-enez), visits Honest Sancho's Used Mexican Lot and Mexican Curio Shop to purchase a robot. She is from Governor Ronald Reagan's office, and needs "a Mexican type for the administration." The play goes on to make fun of different stereotypes of Latinos and the Secretary's lack of knowledge regarding them.

Los Vendidos is published in Luis Valdez - Early Works: Actors, Bernabe and Pensamiento Serpentino from Arte Publico Press in Houston, Texas, 1990.