Assistant Director of Organizing
Delano

Guadalupe Martinez was born in Brownsville, Texas, and moved to California with his mother and family in 1964 after his father suffered a fatal tractor accident.  He soon started working in the field of the San Joaquin Valley, working for a variety of farm labor contractors.  Martinez left school at an early age to work to provide for his family.  In 1973, he met Maria Gallegos while attending night school.  They were married shortly afterward and have lived together to this day, raising three children, Esmeralda, Jorge and Jeraldo.

While working in the grape fields in Ducor, Martinez met several organizers from the United Farm Workers, including Cesar Chavez. That was his first encounter with the Union and the taste for organizing and seeking justice never left him. He soon joined the UFW staff in Delano and worked as a full-time volunteer, tirelessly organizing farm workers for $10 a week stipend. In 1984 Cesar asked Martinez to move to Canada to help organize the grape boycott.  Because of his dedication and belief, Martinez moved his family to Toronto, Ontario, Canada where they lived and organized support for the UFW. Upon his return from Canada in 1988, he continued working with the Union including organizing the local community supporting Cesar’s “Fast for Life” in Delano.
The following year Martinez began working with attorney Federico Sayre on a variety of cases involving pesticides in the San Joaquin Valley.  In 1991 he started working with Luke Cole at the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment as CRPE’s first full-time organizer, working on environmental justice issues in farm worker communities such as Malaga, Kettleman City, Delano, Shafter and Buttonwillow.  Martinez’s daughter Esmeralda and his wife Maria returned to work for the Union in 1993 after the death of Cesar Chavez, and new UFW president Arturo Rodriguez recruited Lupe back to the Union as well.  He served the Union as an organizer, contract administrator, negotiator, Regional Director and National Organizing Director.  In 1996 Martinez was elected to the UFW Executive Board and subsequently elected third vice president. He worked tirelessly, loyally, and passionately organizing farm workers and to establish a union presence again in the San Joaquin Valley. He retired from the Union in January 2006 and has now returned to CRPE to do environmental justice work.

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