During lunch, students flood Daniel Martinez’s art classroom at Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez High School. The walls are filled with colorful designs of students’ artwork over the years. Multiple sinks around the room’s perimeter are splattered with paint, and an eye-catching fish tank sits alongside one wall.
Inside, Martinez does much more than just teach. His unique life journey and appreciation for art have inspired him to be of service to his community. Growing up during a violent time in Boyle Heights, Martinez has had more than his share of experiences with gang violence, drug abuse – and death.
“My friend, he was only 13 and he died because of gang violence,” he said. “ I know people don’t like to talk about that, but it’s reality.”
Early in life, Martinez found motivation through art and used it to escape from gangs and drug use. He now uses his love of art to show students how they can succeed while giving back to their community at the same time.
As the only visual arts teacher at the high school, Martinez makes his presence known. Brianna Sanchez, a senior at Mendez High, finds solace just being in his classroom.
“You can feel how inviting and welcoming it is. Anytime you walk in, you feel relaxed,” Sanchez said. “There’s always a lot of people in the room because Martinez’s [room] is open during nutrition and he’s there even when he doesn’t have to be.”
Martinez said he decorated his classroom with that purpose in mind — as a getaway for students.
“One thing about art, you could be drawing, painting, whatever, for hours, but those hours don’t seem like hours. For me, during the pandemic, I painted some beautiful pieces and when I looked out the window, I was like ‘It’s nighttime already!? Time to go to sleep’,” said Martinez.
Growing up, Martinez was introduced to the book “Spraycan Art” by James Prigoff and Henry Chalfant, which inspired and molded his interest in street art. Whenever he’d see beautiful murals and works of art created with only spray cans, he was in awe.
“Every tiger (graffiti artist) has their own style, and I think I had my own, but seeing that and creating that helped my art skills. I learned color theory and how to express myself because graffiti is usually an expression,” said Martinez. In class, he does not shy away from teaching the principles of street art.
Besides teaching art, Martinez provides his students both personal and academic support: from buying college-quality art supplies with his own money to starting the Mendez Art Symposium, where he gets professional artists to come and speak to the youth about their career paths and experiences. He is always fighting for opportunities to propel his students’ growth and success.
“He [Martinez] makes an effort to make a connection with his students. He makes them feel lighthearted, and puts on a little smile,” said Christian Prince, digital art teacher at Mendez High School.
Martinez also understands students who feel that school isn’t for them and is familiar with taking another road before committing to a college education.
The summer after graduating high school, Martinez joined his dad to work in a lumberyard, waking up at 4:30 in the morning and taking three buses from Boyle Heights to Huntington Park. Those 12-hour shifts under the sun shifted his perspective on college.
“I tell my students, I didn’t even eat during lunch—just found a stack of wood and slept because it was so tiring,” he shared. By the end of that summer, Martinez enrolled at East Los Angeles College. As a C-student, he quickly learned he had to study smarter and work harder.
In 2001, he transferred to Cal State L.A., earning a bachelor’s degree in Child Development with a minor in Art. Martinez later completed his Master of Education, along with teaching and administrative credentials. He worked multiple campus jobs — as a teacher assistant, janitor, campus aide, and behavioral aide, the latter of which sparked his interest in teaching.
Outside of the classroom Martinez serves as the school’s assistant athletic director and baseball coach, and is a part of Local School Leadership. He’s been dubbed as “the voice of Mendez” for his lively emceeing during pep rallies and school events.
Martinez has now been teaching at Mendez for ten years and hopes to one day take on a district-level job related to art.
“Right now, I’m still having fun teaching and I just love seeing my students smiling. I love [seeing] them learning about art,” Martinez said. “One day, I know it’s going to come, the time where I need to step out of the classroom and help them in another way; hopefully becoming an administrator to deal with district issues and implementations to create an environment or a school where students’ voices matter.”
