John has been producing and directing award winning, notionally broadcast documentaries for the past 16 years. Last year his film THE CHICANO WAVE, a history of Mexican-American music, for the PBS/BBC series LATIN MUSIC USA received a prime-time national broadcast in both the United States and Europe. Valadez had two films on the acclaimed PBS series POV: PASSOM'IT ON, about the false imprisonment of a former leader of the Black Panther Party and THE LAST CONQUISTADOR about an artist creating a statue of a Spanish explorer who committed genocide. As the project nears completion The artist finds he must face the moral implications of his work. John directed the first hour of the PBS series MAKING PEACE about Chicano writer, activist and former gang leader Luis Rodriguez and produced THE DIVIDE, the first hour of the PBS series MATTERS OF RACE about a town in North Carolina fractured by racial division.

John was a producer of the nationally broadcast PBS serives VISIONES: LATINO ARTS & CULTURE and he was also a producer of the prime-time PBS special BEYOND BROWN. The film explored the re-segregation of American schools 50 years after the Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Ed. At CNN, Valadez wrote, directed and produced the award winning film HIGH STATES TESTING for CNN PRESENTS. The film was an hour-long hard hitting investigative work about the Bush administration's education policies. Next year Valadez will be a writer, producer, director of the forthcoming six-hour PBS series LATINO AMERICANS. This prime-time series will explore the history of Latinos in The United States.

Valadez has twice been a New York Foundation for The Arts Fellow, is a Rockefeller Fellow, and a graduate of the CPB/PBS Producers Academy at WGBH in Boston.

Valadez regularly screens his films and lectures at universities across the United States. A member of The Writers Guild of America East, Valadez is also a founding member of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) where he regularly mentors emerging filmmakers at the annual NALIP Producer's at the annual NALIP Producer's Academy in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Valadez is a graduate of the film program at New York University's Tisch School of Arts.