Life got ya down?

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Friday, December 14, 2007

UNM Grad an 'Amazing Young Lady'

By Martin Salazar

Copyright © 2007 Albuquerque Journal; Journal Staff Writer

Twenty-two-year-old Natasha Martinez knows a little about adversity and a lot about redemption.

Martinez still remembers the ominous pins and needles feeling she would get as a child when she headed home while living in Las Vegas, Nev.

The fear that police would be at her doorstep each time she was nearing her house came with the territory.

When she was 8, her fears were realized. She watched as police raided her home, placing her father in handcuffs.

She was yanked out of her parents' custody and sent to live with her grandparents in Albuquerque. Her father, Ron Martinez, was sent to a Nevada prison for dealing drugs. Her mother stayed in Nevada until he was released.

Fourteen years later, Martinez, a member of four honor societies, is graduating from UNM with a criminology degree, and she plans to become a lawyer. She is one of the graduates being recognized by Lt. Gov. Diane Denish today during UNM's commencement ceremony at 6 p.m. at the Pit.

"Natasha is an example of how people don't have to be a victim of their circumstances but can be the architect of their lives," Denish said.

Martinez has made peace with the past.

"I've always sort of lived my life with this mentality of things happen that you can't change in life, but how you choose to deal with them defines who you are as a person," she said. "I think that was exactly how I got through it."

Still, it wasn't easy.

After her father was sent to prison, Martinez had to explain to classmates and others why she was living with her grandparents. She dreaded the question.

All these years later, she is close to her mother and adores her father— the man who taught her about redemption and about picking up the pieces.

"My dad is my hero, hands down," she said. "He came out of prison and realized that that wasn't what he wanted. A very, very strong force in that was wanting to get me back."

She was reunited with her parents when she was 12. Martinez said she asked tough questions about how her family ended up where it did.

"He made bad choices. He was very young," Martinez said. "My parents had me when they were 19."

Martinez said her father came from a good middle-class home. His father is a retired Secret Service officer, and his parents have been married for nearly 50 years.

She said her father had always been attracted to danger and adrenaline. And the large amounts of cash he was able to earn in a short time proved too great a temptation for him.

But when he was sent to prison and saw what that did to his family, he realized the price for the life he had been living was too high.

"I liked the danger of it all, but I was also an addict," Ron Martinez said. "I had to pay the bills, and I just, I got too caught up. It hurt everybody I loved."

Ron Martinez said his daughter saw things no child should see.

"She's an amazing young lady," he said. "She's the reason I turned my life around."

With the help of friends and family, Martinez's father was able to find work. He recently moved back from Wyoming, where he had worked for his family's earth-moving business. He now works as a truck driver.

Martinez said her parents were frank with her about what happened. She said her father felt guilty about what he put his family through.

"I told him, 'There's nothing you can do,' '' Martinez said. "'There's nothing you can do except for be proud of yourself now that you have overcome and you have a job and you're honest and you have integrity.' ''

But she realizes that other ex-felons aren't so lucky, getting turned down for jobs because of their criminal pasts.

"We need to look more closely at rehabilitation," she said. She said her life experience has given her the compassion she thinks will make her a good criminal defense attorney.

"I tend to not judge them as much because that was my dad at one point, and that was my dad's friends who were huge parts of my life," Martinez said. "It's easier for me to go in (without bias) and look at them as people instead of as criminals."