Ruben Martinez
Associate Professor

Rubén Martínez is an award-winning journalist, author and musician. He joined the Creative Writing Program as an associate professor in 2002, leading both graduate and undergraduate workshops in non-fiction as well as developing “modern thought” courses that deal with mixed-genre writing, public intellectualism, post-colonial literature, and disapora.
His essays, opinions and reportage have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Jose Mercury News, Salon, Village Voice, The Nation, Spin, Sojourners, and Mother Jones, among others. As a political commentator, he has appeared on ABC's Nightline and Politically Incorrect, PBS's Frontline, NPR’s All Things Considered, and on CNN. He is an associate editor for Pacific News Service and is a former news editor of the L.A. Weekly.

He has received a Lannan Foundation fellowship, a Loeb Fellowship from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, a Freedom of Information Award from the ACLU, a Greater Press Club of Los Angeles Award of Excellence, and an Emmy Award for hosting PBS-affiliate KCET-TV’s Life & Times.

As a musician, Martínez has been featured on albums by Concrete Blonde, Los Illegals, and the Roches, and he is currently at work on a solo album.

The New Americans (The New Press, 2004)
Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail (Picador, 2002)
Eastside Stories (with Joseph Rodriguez, Powerhouse Books, 1998)
The Other Side: Notes from the New L.A., Mexico City and Beyond (Vintage, 1993)