Rubén Martínez (writer)

His 2012 book, Desert America: Boom and Bust in the New Old West, reports on the world of "outrageous wealth and devastating poverty, sublime beauty and ecological ruin" that he found when he lived in northern New Mexico, Joshua Tree, California and Marfa, Texas. The Los Angeles Times reviewer, Hector Tobar, wrote, "Martínez treats all the people he writes about, and the places where they live, with the kind of profound respect all too rare among the legions of Western writers who have preceded him. The result is an emotional and intellectually astute portrait of communities long neglected and misunderstood by American literature."

Martínez's books include: Flesh Life: Sex in Mexico (with Joseph Rodriguez, Powerhouse Books, 2006), The New Americans (New Press, 2004), a companion volume to the PBS series of the same name, Crossing Over: A Mexican Family over the Migrant Trail (Metropolitan/Holt, 2001), East Side Stories (with Joseph Rodriguez, Powerhouse Books, 1998), and The Other Side: Notes from the New L.A., Mexico City & Beyond (Vintage, 1993).

Rubén Martínez has received multiple awards for his work. The awards he has received are the following: The Lannan Foundation fellowship, the Loeb Fellowship from Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, the "Freedom of Information Award" from the ACLU, the "Greater Press Club of Los Angeles Award of Excellence", the Luis Leal award from UC Santa Barbara, and an Emmy Award. The Lannan Foundation fellowship is given to a person whose "work inspires communities domestic and international that are struggling to uphold and defend their right to cultural freedom and diversity", (Lannan Foundation). Martínez won this award in 2002, for his nonfiction work, Crossing Over. In 2005, Martínez was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.) degree from Whittier College.

Martínez's other major work, Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail appeared in 2001. Martínez followed a Mexican migrant clan, the Chavez family, from the small Michoacán town of Cherán, Mexico, into and across the United States. Three of the Chavez's were killed in an accident resulting from a Border Patrol chase while they attempted to cross the border. Martínez also traced the migrations of other families from Cheran, including the Tapias, Enriquezes, and Guzmans. Martínez followed these families as their journeys took them to California, Wisconsin, Missouri and Arkansas in search of the better life. But Martínez found out that this is not what the immigrants necessarily find.

Rubén Martínez's book The New Americans was written in 2004. Martínez wrote the book in the wake of September 11, 2001, when America's response to immigration changed immensely. Throughout the book he makes references to Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, and "The New Colossus", the poem on the Statue of Liberty. Martínez wrote The New Americans to show not only how America's view of immigration has changed, but also how immigration is changing America.

From 1988 until 1993, he was a writer and editor at LA Weekly, becoming the first Latino on staff there. Subsequently, he became a contributing essayist to National Public Radio, and a TV host for the Los Angeles-based politics and culture series, Life & Times, for which he won an Emmy Award.

Rubén Martínez (born 1962, Los Angeles) is a journalist, author, and musician. He is the son of Rubén Martínez, a Mexican American who worked as a lithographer, and Vilma Angulo, a Salvadoran psychologist. Among the themes covered in his works are immigrant life and globalization, the cultural and political history of Los Angeles (Martínez's hometown), the civil wars of the 1980s in Central America (his mother is a native of El Salvador), and Mexican politics and culture (he is a second-generation Mexican-American on the father's side of his family). In August 2012 his book Desert America: Boom and Bust in the New Old West was published by Metropolitan Books.