“Take pride in your story and don’t be afraid to share it”

Photo Credit: “Eloisa Martinez and Granddaughter Michele,” c. 1969, Fresno, California, Collection of Michele Martinez.

Story #15

Michele Martinez

Interviewed by Iris Fitzsimmons Christensen

Written by Iris Fitzsimmons Christensen & Michele Martinez, PhD

Edited by Madeline Humphrey

Michele Martinez was born in London, England, the granddaughter of Mexican and Canadian migrants. How an English Mexican Canadian came to be a United States citizen is a story that goes back a few generations.

The Canadian story begins in Kamloops, British Columbia, where in the early 1930s a teenage Vera Mae Couper, Michele’s maternal grandmother, began crossing the Washington state border to find work in rural areas. Vera’s family included six children, and according to family stories, she was sent across the U.S. border to help support them. Vera eventually settled in the San Francisco Bay Area and worked in a Walgreen’s pharmacy. She met John “Chet” Sherwood and married him in 1942. Vera and Chet moved to Fresno, California, where Michele’s mother Carol grew up with her younger brother. Despite being married to a U.S. citizen, Vera never acquired citizenship. Rather, she remained a life-long permanent resident and never worried about changing her immigration status.

On her father’s side, Martinez’s grandparents Juan and Eloisa first migrated from Mexico in the 1910s. Juan originally came the state of San Luis Potosí to the U.S. at age fifteen and traveled to Pennsylvania in order to be a miner. After other labor experiences in Ohio and Texas, he switched to agriculture in California, primarily in the San Joaquin Valley and Salinas coastal fields. Eloisa left Coahuila for California and became a fieldworker. She often returned to Mexico to visit family, accompanied by her sister who had settled in Los Angeles. Juan and Eloisa met and were married in Los Angeles in 1927. After settling in a small town in Fresno County, Juan became a small grocery store owner and sold food and other supplies to field laborers from his truck. In the late 1950s, Juan, Eloisa, and their eight children bought a home in the heart of Fresno’s Mexican community. Michele grew up visiting her grandparents’ house, which she remembers filled with Spanish and English, delicious home cooking, and cousins of all ages to play with. Her father’s older sister Louise still lives there with family and friends coming and going.

As a first-generation citizen, Michele’s father Francisco (Frank) spoke Spanish at home and learned to “code-switch” between his neighborhood and Fresno’s predominantly White schools. Frank met Carol Sherwood in high school, and they married one year before the Johnson Administration instituted the draft for service in Vietnam. Although Frank had college plans, he enlisted in the Air Force and was stationed at a base outside Northampton, England. Michele was born in London in 1968 and arrived in the U.S. with her parents when she was nine months old. The U.S. government regarded Michele as an immigrant, so her parents had to seek naturalization status on her behalf. The photo of Michele with her grandmother Eloisa is a portrait of two immigrants.

After serving honorably in the Air Force, Frank’s bilingualism made him a perfect candidate for a career in law enforcement. Frank started out as a Fresno Sheriff’s County patrolman and rose through the ranks to become chief homicide detective. As a murder investigator, Frank interacted with many different sides of Fresno. In Michele’s view, her father continued to code-switch as he worked with Latino and White officers and investigated homicides in places his father once conducted business. According to Michele, despite the trauma that he witnessed and experienced working with violent offenders, Frank “loved his work as an investigator. He loved taking care of people and making sure everyone was safe.” In Michele’s view, he and his fellow Chicano officers worked twice as hard to overcome negative stereotypes about Mexicans but also along with Black officers pioneered the presence of people of color in the ranks.  

Michele believes that her family’s migration history has made her “very open-minded and empathetic to people who are trying to come to this country.” She also believes that migration is an essential aspect of being American: “My grandparents migrated to the U.S. for work opportunities and were able to settle without question into communities that welcomed them. My parents migrated to England for military service and returned with me – a baby immigrant! As a young adult, I migrated from California to New England in order to pursue a higher education. Many in the BU community have similar stories, I’m sure!” Michele thinks it’s important to understand the reasons for migration and to prioritize the particular needs of Dreamers, refugees, and asylum seekers. To future and current migrants, Michele advises: “seek out a community that celebrates your culture and that can help you get the resources you need and that will look out for your rights, especially if you are undocumented.” She also adds: “Take pride in your story, and don’t be afraid to share it.”