Richard Elliott Martin 00:08

Today is October 22nd, 2022. My name is Richard Elliot Martin. And I am coming from Roanoke, Virginia. And I have with me here, Christian Martinez. Christian, how are you doing today? 

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 00:32

I'm doing well. How are you doing?

 

Richard Elliott Martin 00:35

Pretty good. It's nice out here. Is it warm in in Northern Virginia? 

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 00:40

It's pretty nice, a bit chilly but it's good weather. 

 

Richard Elliott Martin 00:46

Cool, so uh let's see. May have your full name, please?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 00:57

Yeah, Christian Estuardo Martinez Lemus.

 

Richard Elliott Martin 01:01

Christian es-

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 01:04

Estuardo e s t u a r d o.

 

Richard Elliott Martin 01:10

Okay. And.. 

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 01:12

Martinez and then Lemus. Martinez Lemus L E M U S 

 

Richard Elliott Martin 01:19

Okay, sweet. Let's start with a simple question, where were you originally from? 

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 01:35

My parents are from Guatemala. But I was born in Stafford Alexandria, Virginia. Arlington, Virginia. 

 

Richard Elliott Martin  01:43

Have you lived there your whole life?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 01:48

I lived in Stafford for a majority of my life

 

Richard Elliott Martin  01:56 

And you live there now, Correct?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 02:02

Yeah, I still live in Stafford but my office is in Woodbridge.

 

Richard Elliott Martin  02:08

Do you have family in in Stafford?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 02:11

Yep. My.. both my parents live in Stafford as well, correct. 

 

Richard Elliott Martin 02:17

Where were they born? Were your parents born here or where are they from originally?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 02:34

They were born in Guatemala. 

 

Richard Elliott Martin 02:37

Okay, when did they come to move to the United States?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 02:50

It was early 90s when they came over here. 

 

Richard Elliott Martin 02:55

Early 90s. So they've been here for a while then.

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 02:59

Yeah they've been here ever since...  a little bit longer before I was born.

 

Richard Elliott Martin 03:04

Would you mind telling me how old are you, real quick? 

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 03:13

Twenty-four. 

 

Richard Elliott Martin 03:04

Twenty-four, okay. So you were born here. Did your parents grow up in a city in Guatemala, or were they in a rural environment or what?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 03:33

Yeah. I’m not sure but they were in a little bit in the city. But for the most part it was it was the rural.

 

Richard Elliott Martin 03:41

Okay, I see. What made them want to come to the United States?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 03:51

They came here for a better life and new opportunities over here. 

 

Richard Elliott Martin 03:56

Did they come directly to Virginia or did they live somewhere else?

Christian Martinez-Lemus 04:06

They both ended up *audio cuts out* but it took some time to maneuver their way over here, but yeah Virginia was where they came. 

 

Richard Elliott Martin 04:20

Did they go anywhere else? I'm sorry I didn't catch that. 

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 04:25

What was that?

 

Richard Elliott Martin 04:26

Did they live anywhere-- where else did they live? 

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 04:29

Just Virginia, just Virginia. 

 

Richard Elliott Martin 04:33

Okay, so it must have been something of a different lifestyle a different a big adjustment to move to do Virginia from Guatemala. What was that like? Was it an easy transition? Or how has it been? 

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 04:55

Since I was born here, I was born in Northern Virginia. I never had that same experience as them. But as with anyone coming to a new country, new speaking environment in general, it can be different and challenging for some people. I'm not really sure on their experience for them. I am standing here, because of them and their hard work and all that. 

 

Richard Elliott Martin 05:34

Are you close with your parents? 

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 05:37

Well, yeah. 

 

Richard Elliott Martin 05:43

Okay. what do they do for a living? What kind of work do they do?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 05:50

So, one works with transportation and one works in landscaping.

 

Richard Elliott Martin 05:58

Do you have any brothers or sisters?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 06:06

I have an older brother and younger sister.

 

Richard Elliott Martin 06:09

Do they live in America? 

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 06:11

Yeah, they both in Virginia as well. 

 

Richard Elliott Martin 06:18

Oh okay. So you grew up in Stafford. Did you go here for your college? Where did you go for university?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 06:27

Yeah, I graduated from VCU, last year. In May 2021

 

Richard Elliott Martin 06:44

Congratulations. So did I actually, for my undergrad. What made you choose VCU? 

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 07:00

It was something different from Stafford. I was always interested in the city scenario, as well as the pep band at the university. I was always in music growing up. And so joining the pep band was one thing I was looking at for each of the college universities I looked at. VCU was known to be one of the best pep bands in the country. That was one of the areas. In terms of field of study, I was still figuring myself out. So I was just looking at universities that had good programs where would fit best for me and in my interest.

 

Richard Elliott Martin 07:52

What instrument do you play, in the pep band? 

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 08:00

I play trumpet.

 

Richard Elliott Martin 08:06

How long have you been playing? That's kind of cool. Did you play in high school?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 08:12

So I-- Yeah, I played since middle school in sixth grade. So let's see. It's it was about 11 years. 12 years going on. I really haven't had the opportunity to play since after college. But I've played for 11 years.

 

Richard Elliott Martin 08:30

That's a long time. Playing in a pep band during COVID, did you find you had a lot of performance opportunities? Was it online? How did that work out?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 08:51

So the last two years were interesting regarding pep band. I mean, obviously once the pandemic started we shut everything down. So we didn't play or had any other opportunity to play and they because we didn't know what the virus like we didn't know anything about it. We didn't have any information on it especially when it goes to music and playing through air so air is spreading when we when we play into our instruments. So after it took a couple of months to leave it got back and then after learning the science and studies with music and COVID were they able to come back. Performance wise we didn't really have much mainly because our band was so big and so large that the last two years were really just practice opportunity and just continue just to play and just have that good moments with each other before we graduate.

 

Richard Elliott Martin 09:54

Well, it's good to you're able to do that. I know it's been tough. I play bass guitar, and I know, for a long time, it was really hard to find live opportunities. But I'm glad we're starting to get to see some of that again. Do you pursue that stuff now? Or just play as a hobby?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 10:32

CML: I haven't really--

 

Richard Elliott Martin 10:58

I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. 

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 11:09

Can you repeat the question?

 

Richard Elliott Martin 11:12

Do you play as a hobby nowadays?  Or do you find that you have opportunities to play live? Do you play with other people?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 11:26

So I haven't really had the opportunity after college. I've just been busy on working on a lot of other side projects. But I'm looking to pick back up a new instrument next year. And just start doing that again.

 

Richard Elliott Martin 11:47

Ok, I see. So, you've been busy ever since graduation. What is your CASA? What  is your organization and what sort of work do you do?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 12:12

So, CASA is a nonprofit organization. is a not as of a couple. We advocate for the Latino community, the immigrant community, and work community. Within the organization, we have offices in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and now Georgia. And we focus on the three pillars, which are in community services, community advocacy, and community organizing. In Virginia, we have a little over 10,000 community members. And overall as an organization, we have over 120,000 members.

 

Richard Elliott Martin 13:05

Wow, you have a lot of members. It's a large organization.  LinkedIn indicates that you are the advocacy specialist or an advocacy specialist. Tell me a little bit about that. What would a typical work day be like with CASA?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 13:38

I'm currently the advocacy specialist at CASA. And basically the day to day job, essentially a lobbyist. I am advocating for the policies that our committee members vote on annually. Committee members have their coalition and committee groups, and they discuss what the needs are in Virginia, and possible campaign opportunities to for the organization to run in Virginia. So as they meet and whenever they vote on their campaigns, we listen to them and they as they vote, that's when we take them on. So for this year, we focused on trust policies in Fairfax County, which was basically trusting county services with the residents in Fairfax County, to be able to use services, um, without immigration officials or ICE being involved in any of that for anyone seeking help or assistance. Another campaign I've worked on this past year is Safe Streets, which is basically focused on transit equity, and having safer roads or road conditions in order to lower the fatality rate. These two are focused in Fairfax County. So, I focus on Fairfax County and Prince Edward County, the two that I just mentioned are the two campaigns are working up in there. In Prince William County, the community members are continuing to meet and decide on what we'll be doing for for the following year. And so I'm meeting with all the local, state, and federal elected officials. I'm getting ready for the General Assembly session. So I'll be in Richmond lobbying the bills that the members have voted on this past cycle.

 

Richard Elliott Martin 16:09

It's been an interesting couple of years. How has COVID changed things since you've been there?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 16:32

In terms of what, for COVID?

 

Richard Elliott Martin 16:09

Well um. How has COVID affected the immigrant community, for one thing? It's affected a lot of us-- how has it affected the members of the immigrant community?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 17:05

When COVID came out, there was not much information on what the virus did. The only information we saw that it was getting a lot of people infected. And also, there are a lot of fatalities with this virus, and not a lot of people knew that. So, when the vaccines rolled out there, there was a problem with communication to people as well as with transportation to get the vaccine. I was reaching out to all these people and just saying, because the vaccines are free for everyone, regardless of citizenship, ‘you should get vaccinated, it's completely free'. It was getting the message out to everyone in Spanish or any other language they are coming from. And help them out with any resource, whether its getting them to get vaccines, or just informing them on the positive impacts of getting a vaccine. And those were really some of the some of the problems regarding COVID. The good thing with what we did in in our Maryland office is we would have always vaccine drives, and always communicate on the positive impacts of getting a vaccines. We would have-- vaccine drives. If anyone needed a vaccine, they could get an appointment. We would have those services that we could help with. 

 

Richard Elliott Martin 18:48

So, so you've been getting information out to the public, and raising people's awareness, is what it sounds like. 

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 19:03

Yeah, so a lot of this was done before I even joined the organization. I mean, my part is also with connecting a lot of elected officials to communicate to their constituents as well. As we continue to inform everyone, I'm not just informing the community members themselves, but I'm also informing the elected officials, so that they can inform their constituents and keep everyone as informed as they can.

 

Richard Elliott Martin 19:41

Have you found that things changed at all? As vaccines become available, do the numbers getting to be better? Are people going out and getting more vaccinations now or less?

Christian Martinez-Lemus 20:00

I'm not sure. I think for the most part with everything I've known, it's gotten well. They're quarantining. There are a lot of people who might be getting COVID, but not getting the-- they won't be on the official record because they are not getting the test through the doctors, which will pop that record or statistics, and so I guess the rates will go down. But we're definitely glad with the vaccine rates going up higher and higher in Virginia. I don't remember the what it is now, but more than half of the Commonwealth is already vaccinated, which is great. And we’ll continue to get people information about boosters, as well as the flu shot, because it's flu season.

 

Richard Elliott Martin 21:08

Right. That’s very important. Have you found that things have changed significantly since the new governor has been in office? How have the Governor Youngkin's  policies affected the the immigrant community?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 21:47

With the current Youngkin administration, there was really one change with making vaccinations optional, just removing the mandatory vaccines mandates in boths the schools, with mask and just in general with vaccines I mean, there was going to be a time when all of that information was going to be made optional. It was just a really matter of when. *audio cuts out*... Doing our part with vaccine encouragement and doing what we can. Something that the Youngkin administration has done when they started, they still continued to encourage people to get the vaccine, but they left it up to the individual and family choice. 

 

Richard Elliott Martin 22:56

What was your major at VCU?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 23:11

So I graduated with three degrees from VCU. I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness and political science, and a Bachelors of Science in Criminal Justice.

 

Richard Elliott Martin 23:27

Oh wow, thats a lot of work. I did a major and minor myself, so I'm aware. Is this something you've always wanted to do? How did you get into into the field?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 23:53

So, I decided to major in those three things during my sophomore year at VCU. Homeland Security was my primary degree. Everything after 9/11 that kind of sparked interest in majoring what I majored in and helping people, as well as safety and security. Regarding the political science side of things, everything after the 2016 election kind of sparked my interest in the political world. I was a senior in college, when the election was going on. Just learning government and politics in that area of field. And in criminal justice, understanding any code of law or procedure was something of a spark in my interest.

 

Richard Elliott Martin 24:51

So you were always interested in this sort of field. Well, unfortunately, we only have a couple of minutes left. So, what would you want the public to take away from your story?

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 25:15

I would say, always give it your all and give it your best. And to not be afraid to take on new challenges and to do what you enjoy. Because in the long run your career and passion are going to be that which you'll enjoy rather than something you're just gonna get tired and bored of in the future. You want to go into a field that you enjoy rather than doing it just for the money. I enjoy what I'm doing right now, mainly because this is what I did and studied in school, as well as gained experience before entering the job. And so I really enjoy the job and I recommend everyone just to continue doing what they enjoy, and everything should go well after. 

 

Richard Elliott Martin 26:09

That's solid advice, that's good life advice also I think. Well, Christian, I really do appreciate your time. Thank you for agreeing to do this interview, and I wish you the best of luck with your next projects. 

 

Christian Martinez-Lemus 26:31

Thank you. 

 

Richard Elliott Martin 26:32

Alright, thank you again, I will see you soon. Bye