rafael martinez

Rafael A. Martínez is an Assistant Professor of Southwest Borderlands at Arizona StateUniversity (ASU). At ASU, he teaches courses on the American Southwest, Arizona History, theU.S.-Mexico Borderlands, and Transborder Chicano Literature. Dr. Martínez’s forthcoming book with the University of Arizona Press, Illegalized: Undocumented Youth Movements in the United States, analyzes the rise of Undocumented Youth Social Movements in the U.S. and immigrant youth’s contributions to the broader Immigrant Rights Movements.

Dr. Martínez is a resident of Chandler and has been fostering community in multiple ways. Rafael is engaged in public projects that seek to connect academic work with community development. As such, he has focused considerable efforts in exploring the historical contributions of Latinx and ethnic communities in Phoenix's East Valley. Dr. Martínez is the founder of the project, Querencia: Voices from Chandler's Latinx Barrios, a community-based oral history, digital humanities, and public history project undertaken with Latinx community members across the historical and contemporary barrios in the City of Chandler. The project's success has extended to the production of an exhibit and digital archive of the oral histories with the Chandler Museum.