From Garfield High to the world stage, Los Lobos have defined what it means to be Mexican American

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

There’s a familiar shorthand history of the L.A. band Los Lobos: four working-class Chicano musicians in their early twenties — David Hidalgo, Conrad Lozano, Louie Pérez and Cesar Rosas — got together in 1973 and began playing traditional Mexican music. That’s the music they recorded for their first album, 1978’s “Los Lobos del Este de Los Angeles (Just Another Band From East L.A.).” 

A few years later, they moved on to the other music they grew up listening to — rock, R&B and blues. After adding saxophonist Steve Berlin and releasing two critically acclaimed albums in the mid-1980s, they were tapped to perform Ritchie Valens’ songs for the hit 1987 film, “La Bamba.” The soundtrack album topped the Billboard charts and catapulted the band to rock star status. 

But instead of continuing along that gilded path, they reverted to the traditional sounds — both in Spanish and English — that meant so much to them. Fifty-plus years after starting out, Los Lobos are still at it, and now a new documentary is digging deep into their ups and downs — and how they always stayed true to their East L.A. roots.

“Los Lobos: Native Sons” — co-directed by Doug Blush and Piero F. Giunti — had its world premiere on Sunday at the SXSW Film & TV Festival in Austin, Texas. The band was in attendance, proudly walking the red carpet in front of the historic Paramount Theatre. The film, which took 4 ½ years to complete, combines archival photos and film/video footage (17 boxes of material from Pérez alone), alongside contemporary interviews with the band members, their families and a host of admirers, including Linda Ronstadt, Rubén Blades, Dolores Huerta, Cheech Marin, Edward James Olmos, George Lopez and others.

“I thought the film was great,” said Pérez, speaking from his home a few days after the premiere. “There were tears, cheers … I was moved.”

The new documentary “Los Lobos: Native Sons” was 4 1/2 years in the making.

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Courtesy Native Sons Films

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Pérez said he was particularly touched by a part in the film when his wife talks about the song, “A Matter of Time,” off the band’s album, “How Will the Wolf Survive?” from 1984. Pérez noted that he and Hidalgo wrote the song about a Mexican migrant worker who has to part ways with his family:

In the film, Mary Pérez becomes emotional as she describes how the song was just as much about the band members leaving their families behind when they went on tour, the kids waking up to find their fathers gone.

“That song became our narrative,” Louie Pérez said in our interview. In the film, he bluntly states that the band “wouldn’t exist without the women in our lives.” Those women were the den mothers of the wolfpack, holding down the fort at home, accompanying the band on tour when possible, with some of the kids eventually jamming with their dads onstage.

Personal stories aside, the documentary also poetically frames the band’s — and the country’s — evolution over a half-century. “I saw the face of America change,” Pérez says in the film. “And that face is brown.”

Days after the premiere, Pérez reflected on the band’s journey. “All our success, all our hard work — we’re fortunate to be where we are considering where we came from.”

Los Lobos continue to perform after 53 years as a band.

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Courtesy Native Sons Films

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From Garfield High School to playing at weddings and quinceañeras to performing in the Obama White House and winning four Grammy Awards, Los Lobos has exemplified — indeed, helped define — what it means to be Mexican American.

“We set out to de-mystify what a Mexican was, what a Chicano was,” Pérez said. “We needed to let people know who we were.”

And that they did, and continue to do — for 53 years and counting. 

“At this point in my life,” said the 73-year-old Pérez, “I’ve never been more proud to be who I am.”