Rueben Martinez

Who is Rueben Martinez?

Rueben Martinez is a Mexican-American activist and businessman. Seeing no future for himself in the small mining town where he grew up, at the age of seventeen Martinez left Arizona for Southern California. He found a job at the massive Bethlehem Steel plant in Maywood, East Los Angeles, attended night school at Santa Ana College, married and began raising a family. By the standards of his community he was a success, but as the years went by Martinez began to feel that he hadn't yet found an occupation which was 'the right fit.' He quit Bethlehem Steel to explore a series of other jobs in Southern California until finally in the late 1970s he used his savings to open a barbershop in downtown Santa Ana and proceeded to cut hair full-time for over twenty years.