We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Martina Robles Gallegos. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Martina below.

Alright, Martina thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career

As a former undocumented immigrant then former bilingual elementary school teacher, I witnessed how poorly immigrant parents and students were treated by office staff, volunteers, other employees, and especially teachers who spoke only English, but, ironically and sadly, I also saw the same thing from bilingual teachers. I firmly believe it is important for teachers to make students and parents feel valued and their culture respected. No teacher, volunteer, or any other school personnel ought to tell students not to speak their mother or native language. That’s downright disrespectful to the students and their parents. Parents are an integral part of their children’s educational journey and should be allowed to make decisions that positively affect their children. Letting parents volunteer in classrooms or school is an excellent way to show them how important their contribution to their children’s a academic achievement and social development is.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Obviously, the first question in this interview didn’t apply to me, but I had to choose something in order to proceed. I know I’ve always liked language and playing with it. I found a journal I kept in high school where I found quite a few poems I wrote when I was barely learning English. I was surprised they weren’t too bad and had even forgotten I’d written them, but they’re dated and all. I started writing more seriously after contacting my former high school teacher, Dr. Thelma T. Reyna, after barely surviving a massive, near fatal hemorrhagic stroke. She told me: Martina, you have many stories and experiences to share with the world. Keep writing, and one day we’ll publish them. She began sending me calls for submissions, but I published my first poems on AllPoetry.com. Once I saw my name online in print, I loved what I saw and began submitting my work to calls for submissions and have been writing and publishing ever since.
I must admit, I first started writing for therapy after my brain was severely damaged by the stroke. I felt all the pent up rage I carried inside me could kill me if I didn’t spew it out. After my great medical team, the second thing that saved my life was writing and going back to school to resume my Master’s degree. Working on my degree was obviously not easy because my brain literally hurt, and even some professors and my academic advisor wanted me to quit the program because ‘I wasn’t ready for it.’
Only I could decide whether I was ready or not. My wonderful therapists at Cottage Rehabilitation Hospital saw I had a great… (judgement) can’t think of the words. I was a great judge of character. That’s also the reason I still have my driver’s license.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

From very early in my life, I learned to fend for myself by making the right choices and working hard. I survived childhood anemia and being bullied for being poor. I could never participate in school events because my parents couldn’t afford to pay for the materials we needed. I started working in the field helping my dad plow the land, and I was the one sowing the seeds. It was a big job for a tiny Martina, but I did it anyway because it helped feed my family. I started school late and babysat my cousin’s son and made money I saved and later used to have someone make my graduation dress, a simple dress but one I worked to pay for. I graduated from elementary school barely making the grades but did it before I was kicked out for being too old. Then came the unexpected trip to El Norte after graduation….

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I don’t consider myself to be a business person. I started making connections in social media to keep in touch with my family, friends, former colleagues, and former high school teacher and classmates, but it was my former high school teacher who recommended other people and friends who were in the publishing industry. I’d check out their friends’ list to see if any had my same interests and, if so, I’d send them a Friend Request. I first started with Facebook then Instagram, Twitter, and finally TikTok just for fun. Now I share much of my work on Facebook under my personal page Martina Gallegos: profile picture of my mother and me at fourteen years old, but I also have my professional Facebook page, Author Martina Robles Gallegos.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Selbor2015
• Twitter: MartinaGalleg97

Image Credits
Picture where I’m wearing Jean jacket: Picture credit: Annie Slagboom