Casa 0101 Theatre in Boyle Heights celebrated its 25th anniversary at the same time “Fernandomania” opened, a play that marks the contributions of the legendary L.A. Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela.
The most successful pitcher from Mexico in Major League Baseball history, Fernando Valenzuela changed the lives of Angelenos. The production explores how his rise shaped both baseball history and the cultural pride of Los Angeles’ Latino community.
For Casa 0101 founding director Josefina López, co-writer of “Real Women Have Curves,” Valenzuela’s story is personal.
“For a lot of us, Fernando Valenzuela is a connection to our father and listening to the radio. Listening to the Dodger games with our cars,” López said. “It was also like a celebration of Latino men in this community, especially at a time when Latinos were being villainized. We’re being vilified and made up to be the bad guys.”
Valenzuela arrived in Los Angeles in 1980 and quickly became a sensation. His success helped soften the bitter history of Chavez Ravine, the Mexican American neighborhood that was cleared in the 1950s for public housing that was never built.
Instead, the land was sold to the Dodgers, and Dodger Stadium was built on the site in 1962. This left many evicted and displaced families, devastated to leave their community. The eviction brought lasting scars.
For the community, the stadium symbolized betrayal and loss, as their homes were literally bulldozed. When Valenzuela showed up and became a superstar for the Dodgers in 1981, Mexican American fans felt like one of their own had finally “taken back” Dodger Stadium.
“Fernando himself was, like, an idol, role model, a person that we can relate to,” said Edward Navarrete, the actor who portrayed Valenzuela in the play. “Mexican Americans and Mexicans started to tune in…when at times we thought we couldn’t see ourselves.”
While Valenzuela did not erase the history of evictions, his presence gave dignity and pride to people who had felt erased from that land.
Chavez Ravine was a vibrant, predominantly Mexican American community. Residents of the neighborhoods of Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop, who had built strong cultural communities because of housing discrimination elsewhere, were displaced. When the public housing project was canceled, the land was eventually sold to Walter O’Malley, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers. The remaining families were forced out.
Ignacio Gonzalez is one of the writers of “Fernandomania,” a series of 12 short plays about Latino families in the 1980s and ’90s who bonded around the pitcher’s rise.
“He became an icon back in a time when going viral was not that easy,” Gonzalez said. “That celebration,” he added, “felt like reclaiming space.”
“It was kind of like we’re taking back the land even though we’re not ignoring the history that happened.”
