We were lucky to catch up with Rob Martinez recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Rob, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?
My parents. My father was a hard worker and a natural entertainer. Performing music with him on stages across New Mexico and throughout the USA instilled in me a sense of optimism and purpose that I still use to this day as a musician and a historian. My mom was always there for us kids, feeding us, caring for us and nurturing us. She provided an example of how to keep a solid grounding when chaos arrives in life. Confidence was developed through years of watching my dad and others perform, and what they did to have the confidence to do what they did. That is external. Self-esteem came from within, believing in myself and have the fortitude to follow through, and persevere even when I was uncertain or things looked bad.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am a historian who has been fascinated by New Mexico’s past for decades. My family has Spanish, Mexican, Puebloan, and Genizaro Indian roots in northern New Mexico going back centuries, and I was always engaged by stories my mom and dad would tell about our family. I wanted to learn more, and started reading books about New Mexico when I was fifteen years old. I was perplexed by the self-examining question, am I Spanish or Mexican? I took history classes at the University of New Mexico and eventually earned a MA in History. I wanted to know about our witchcraft beliefs, which led me to study Catholic Church history, ethnic studies of the multicultural peoples of the New Mexico in the 1700s, as well as the Inquisition. This resulted in my work as a research assistant at the Vargas Project at UNM, where I worked for five years learning paleography, transcribing and translating 18th century Spanish colonial documents, and editing. I then worked for the Sephardic Legacy Project of New Mexico, researching family histories in Mexico and Spain, working in church and civil archives. I taught high school history for ten years before becoming deputy state historian of New Mexico. I then was hired as state historian in 2019 and am still in that position, a job I love and plan to continue in for many more years to come. I am also a musician, as my whole family are singers and play instruments. My father was a mariachi musician and composed Mexican corridos about New Mexico historical events. My sisters and brothers are also musicians and singers, and I have performed and recorded music for almost forty years now.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
As far as music, it is the love of music that impacted my musical journey. It is very difficult to make a living playing music, styles and fashions change almost every year, so a love and passion for singing, playing and writing music is what has sustained me all these years. Dedication and determination to learn history has led to a very fruitful and amazing journey for me as a historian, that has taken me on adventures not only throughout Mexico, Puerto Rico, Havana, Cuba, Spain, France, Italy and England, but also to past events and peoples. My skills in paleography and presenting have served me well. Also, being prepared when opportunity knocks is crucial to having a fulfilling experience in areas such as music and history.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
Perhaps the most impactful book in my road to becoming a historian was My Penitente Land by fray Angelico Chavez. It is a poetic, romantic and delightful history of New Mexico by an author who knew history, culture and how to write. While my research has led me to disagree with this point or that by Chavez, overall his study holds up, and his thought-provoking observations still intrigue me. Chavez grabbed my attention when I was fifteen years old with the word “penitente” in the title, as I had heard that word in the village where my dad grew up in the high mountains of northern New Mexico. This esoteric Catholic religious brotherhood is legendary, and I wanted to know more. Chavez provided a history and theories as to the origins not only of penitentes, but of us, the Hispano people of New Mexico. He speculated that much of what we consider ancient cultural attributes in New Mexico actually formed and flourished in a much later period, such as the early 1800s.
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Image Credits
Black and white photo by Sarah McIntyre.
