The Block Captain's Daughter

Demetria Martínez is an author, activist, lecturer, and columnist. Her autobiographical essays, Confessions of a Berlitz-Tape Chicana (Univ. of Oklahoma Press), won the 2006 International Latino Book Award in the category of best biography.

Born in Albuquerque, NM, in 1960, where she now resides, Martínez earned her BA from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. She teaches at the annual June writing workshop at the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences at the Univ. of Massachusetts, Boston. Martínez writes a column for the independent progressive bi-weekly The National Catholic Reporter. She is involved with Enlace Comunitario, an immigrants' rights group that works with Spanish-speaking survivors of domestic violence.