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'We Belong Together': How Ritchie Valens' Music Inspired a New Book of Poetry

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A two people, one holding a guitar, point at a wall of records.
Ritchie Valens (left) and president of Del-Fi Records Bob Keane on a TV show in 1958 in Los Angeles. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Few dates hold as much resonance in the history of American rock ’n’ roll as Feb. 3, 1959.

On that day, a single-engine plane with room for only three passengers crashed into a cornfield in Clear Lake, Iowa, just minutes after takeoff. The pilot and three budding stars of rock ’n’ roll — Buddy Holly, J.P. Richardson Jr. aka The Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens — all died. That winter day became known as “The Day the Music Died,” and was immortalized in the 1971 song “American Pie” by Don McLean.

An ornate pink and white book cover.
A new book by award-winning poet J. Michael Martinez uses the life and music of ‘La Bamba’ singer Ritchie Valens to explore identity, culture and politics. (Courtesy of J. Michael Martinez)

Valens was the youngest on board at 17 years old. The Mexican-American singer from Pacoima, in the San Fernando Valley, had begun his career less than a year earlier. Yet, his legacy was already cemented through his timeless hits including, “We Belong Together,” “Donna,” and his widely beloved interpretation of the Mexican folk song, “La Bamba.”

In 1987, the film La Bamba starring Lou Diamond Phillips, captured Valens’ life story. Los Lobos, the veteran East Los Angeles rockers, performed Valens’ music. The band’s cover of “La Bamba,” went on to become a No. 1 hit upon the film’s release, reintroducing the music of Ritchie Valens to a new generation of fans.

Almost 40 years later, award-winning poet and San José State professor J. Michael Martinez has created a new, poetic ode to Valens. Tarta Americana, which is Spanish for American Pie, uses the life and music of Valens to better understand issues around race, culture and politics as they show up in Martinez’s own life.

Sasha Khokha’s interview with J. Michael Martinez has been edited for length and clarity — for the full version, listen to the audio at the top of the page.

Sasha Khokha: How did you first get into Ritchie Valens’ music?

Michael Martinez: My mother had “La Bamba” on vinyl, and it was actually the first record that she owned, so she would throw it on the record player growing up. After the movie came out, I was completely enthralled. And so, we ended up having the soundtrack always going and as a child, I would dance to “La Bamba.”

My mom had such a visceral, joyous response to the sound of his voice and to that opening pluck of guitar. To see my mother immediately joyous and jovial, shaking and ready to dance, that was always a sign that it was going to be a good day.

You mention the film La Bamba a lot in this book. Tell me your first memories of watching it.

I distinctly remember this. We were in our little TV room. We’d ordered pepperoni pizza and my mother pushed it into the VHS and [hit] play. And [there’s] the opening music that the film has and then this particular scene of Latinos and Latinas in the fields harvesting and gathering.

A scan of a photo of you children smiling and posing for a photo.
Ivan Martinez and 5-year-old J. Michael Martinez, around the time he first watched the film La Bamba. (Courtesy of J. Michael Martinez)

No other film that I’d seen up to that point as a child had ever resonated with me in that way before. Because there were people that looked like my uncles and aunts, that looked like my mother, my father, and then Ritchie who was not able to speak Spanish fluently, like me.

It really changed my perspective of racial identification. Even as a child, I was like, “Oh, here’s a Chicano that can’t speak Spanish fluently like me that is interested in art like me.” He was deeply, deeply important — a pivotal figure for me to comprehend what it means to be a Chicano, a Latino, in the U.S.

Are there parallels that you see in terms of Valens’ journey as an artist and yours?

He was very much a presence in my young childhood, and so radically influenced my visions of what an artist can be. When he was singing, that music was meant to generate community and to generate hope and love, to bring people together, to see them in their joy. That full effort to pursue art, to pursue music, parallels for me the desire to pursue poetry in language and to cultivate community in the hopes of providing some avenue toward joy.

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Valens’ name was actually whitewashed by his record producer. His real name was Richard Valenzuela, right?

Certain people, because they’re lighter, they’re more digestible in terms of cultural perception and cultural difference. The more you look like me, the more I can comprehend you. And I think with Valens, that name becomes more legible to audiences that may not understand the “Zuela” of “Valenzuela.”

But what’s incredible is that one of his hit songs ended up being in Spanish.

Isn’t that ironic? Isn’t that beautiful? You don’t need to compromise in order to be popular, to create art that finds itself accessible to different audiences. That still informs my revolutionary attitude toward language, toward teaching; that there can be integrity and you don’t necessarily need to compromise in the name of capital to sell a product.

A group of people outdoors beside a house.
A Martinez family gathering. (Courtesy of J. Michael Martinez)

A lot of this book is in the form of letters from you to Valens. One of my favorite letters is where you talk about an experience your niece had and how you reacted to it.

Letters to Ritchie XI

Ritchie,

This morning my seven-year-old niece told me a story

about a girl in her class asking her if she was a “dirty

Mexican,” & frowning, I recalled a conversation with

my mother two days prior, when my mother reminded

me: when I was five, when we were the only “colored”

people in the freshly painted suburban all-American

picket fence dream on the northwest side of a pretty

square town; my mother said, one day, after playing on

the sparkly slide side of the park, I stumbled home,

crying, & Baby-Me told my Mom-Then that an older,

tall, freckle-faced, red-haired boy kept calling me a

“dirty Mexican,” & my mom said I cry-sighed to her, “I

take showers, Mommy, I’m not

dirty,”

&, Ritchie,

heart emojis

pop-tart

around me as I try to remember being such a small

bucktoothed bowl-cut, &, Ritchie, this morning, forty

years older than four feet, I asked my niece how she

replied, & my niece flipped her long, chestnut-brown

hair over her shoulder, & after an intentionally dramatic

pause, she lifted her chin, & rocking her head on her

neck, all Beyoncé-Queen-B-has-deemed-you-Oh-No-

You-Didn’t, she said, “I told her I was a Martinez, & then

I pushed her butt to the ground,” &, Ritchie, fireworks

smiling out of the corner of her eyes, for one moment we

were both one anticipation, then, heads thrown back,

we’re braying trombones, stomping merry—joy our

preferred stereotype.

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Valens almost becomes the listener and somebody to bear witness to your own biographical journey as you’re mining his.

Yeah, I think that’s really right on. Ritchie became synonymous for me as this energy that we associate with love and how it brings generations like me and my mother, my niece who loves La Bamba, different races together.

He’s a vehicle, a spirit and energy that I can ride and identify with toward this plane of understanding.

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