Well-Known Local Author to Speak at Open-to-the-Public Rotary Meet Today

Independent consultant, researcher, and author Roberta H. Martínez will be the guest speaker during the Pasadena Rotary Club’s meeting on Wednesday, July 17, lunchtime at the University Club Pasadena, at 175 N. Oakland Avenue.

Martínez will speak on the topic “Pasadena 1920: The Only Thing Certain is Change.”

The meeting is open to the public. There is a charge for lunch.

Martínez was born and raised in East Los Angeles and earned her college degrees as a re-entry student, receiving her BA in Music and MA in Music and History from UC Riverside.

Martínez began Public History presentations in the San Gabriel Valley in 1999. She’s conducted ethnographic interviews with individuals who identify as members of Asian American Pacific Islander, Armenian, Black, Latino, and LGBTQ, and White communities.

She became a Huntington Library Reader in 2012, where her research focused on founding families in the Pasadena area and Eulalia Pérez Guillen de Mariné. Arcadia Publishing set her book, “Latinos in Pasadena,” on the market in 2009.

She has served on the Arts Commission and Library Commission for the City of Pasadena, as well as on the boards of Pasadena Community Access Corporation, Armory Center for the Arts, and the Pasadena Senior Center. She’s been the chair of the Pasadena City College President’s Latino Advisory Committee, and Chair of the Pasadena Latino Coalition.

She currently serves on several advisory committees including Pacific Oaks School of Human Development, and the program committee of La Plaza de Cultura y Artes in Los Angeles.

She is a founder of the Latino Heritage parade and festival and was in the first class of Leadership Pasadena.

Earlier this year, she was interviewed by CSPAN on the history of Latinos in the San Gabriel Valley and lectured on some lesser-known leaders in Pasadena’s Black community.

Martínez has been named a YWCA Woman of Excellence, Congressional District Woman Of The Year in the 29th District, received the Alliance for Community Media Award in the Western States Region; received a City of Pasadena Human Relations Commission Harry Sheldon Award; and was chosen as one of Pasadena Magazine’s 50 Fabulous Women of Influence.

She was also a recipient of the Maestro Award from the Latino Arts Network of California; was a Community Grand Marshal of the Latino Heritage Parade; and a Herstory honoree of the Commission on the Status of Women.

Buffet lunch on Wednesday is $33, with complimentary valet parking. No RSVP is required.