Martínez, Rubén

Rubén Martínez (born 1962, Los Angeles) is a journalist, author, and musician. He is the son of Rubén Martínez, a Mexican American who worked as a lithographer, and Vilma Angulo, a Salvadoran psychologist. Among the themes covered in his works are immigrant life and globalization, the cultural and political history of Los Angeles (Martínez's hometown), the civil wars of the 1980s in Central America (his mother is a native of El Salvador), and Mexican politics and culture (he is a second-generation Mexican-American on the father's side of his family). In August 2012 his book Desert America: Boom and Bust in the New Old West was published by Metropolitan Books.