Pedro Martin introduced his large Mexican-American family in his debut children’s graphic novel, 2023’s Mexikid: A Graphic Memoir. Part memoir, part road trip adventure, Martin’s story described what it was like to be raised with eight brothers and sisters.
Martin revisits his youth again in his new follow-up, Mexikid Dreams, which he discusses at Bookshop Santa Cruz on Sept. 16. Using more stories and vivid drawings, Martin shares his wholly unique experience of growing up in a migrant family in 1970s California, and how he dreamed of escaping the sometimes harsh reality of his childhood.
“I’m hoping people get to see the struggles of an immigrant family,” says Martin, now based in Kansas City. “So when they’re confronted by an immigrant family or see them being mistreated, they see people who’ve crossed rivers and deserts to work here, and that they’re here for good intentions. They want to live the same dreams that everyone else has. I’m hoping this book will have a real empathetic effect on kids.”
Originally from Mexico, Martin’s family lived in and ran a restaurant in San Fernando near L.A. before moving to Watsonville in 1971. His parents worked as sharecroppers in the strawberry fields for Driscoll’s, and so did Martin and all eight of his siblings until he was 14. Most of his family still resides in and around Watsonville, excluding his brother, Hugo, who’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning assistant editor for the L.A. Times.
After graduating from San Jose State University, Martin worked as a graphic artist for 27 years at Hallmark Cards, where he began creating autobiographical comics on 3×5 cards. He later started posting them on his Instagram and website, mexikid.com, and has since amassed more than 150 comics that blend his Mexican-American upbringing with some funny pop culture nostalgia.
“A couple of cartoonist friends approached me and said that there’s no voice like this in the web comics world, and that you should really consolidate your ideas, brand yourself, get out there and start telling your stories,” says Martin.
Martin then wrote Mexikid, recounting the time he traveled in a Winnebago with his entire family to Jalisco, Mexico, to pick up his abuelito, his stern, non-English-speaking grandfather, who lived through the Mexican Revolution and died at 107 years old.
In the book, Martin is 13, loves comic books, action figures, Star Wars and Happy Days. He’s more Americanized than his older siblings, who were born in Mexico. During the trip, he encountered some mishaps and trouble, including explosives, angry animals and having to dig up his grandmother’s grave and rebury her in a mausoleum.
But in Mexikid Dreams, Martin really delves into his family’s dynamics. He has to pick strawberries after school, on the weekends and during the summer. It’s backbreaking work—“the most funless job ever”—especially in extreme weather.
He describes food fights, fly-infested outhouses and run-ins some of the sharecroppers have with immigration patrols. Martin says his father was undocumented when he first moved to America and was deported several times. Apart from sharecropping, his father had to work odd jobs, including building coffins.
“This book is a love letter to my father and all the hard work he had to do so I could get to a place where I could make the leap from working in the fields to sitting in a studio drawing cartoons,” says Martin.
But young Martin would rather watch cartoons, draw comics inspired by the comic books that his brothers brought home and hang out at the beach and boardwalk like other local kids.
“The basic dream for little Pedro was just to stay home, watch Saturday morning cartoons and draw, which was antithetical to my father’s dream, which was to be out in the field, work and survive,” says Martin. “Those two dreams are in opposition in the beginning of the story. But what we find out later is that my dream of becoming an artist and being anything but a sharecropper is kind of a continuation of my father’s dream. My dad’s dream was to survive and my dream was to thrive. So it’s basically about our two dreams coming together.”
To escape the drudgery of picking strawberries, Martin listens to music on a hand-held radio and has visions of being visited by the ghosts of Elvis, ABBA, Neil Diamond, Dolly Parton, Fleetwood Mac and Vicente Fernández.
His parents want him to become a priest or join a mariachi band, but Martin plays the trombone in junior high school as a way to get out of work.
Despite his grueling job, Martin writes that “sometimes the field can be a magical experience.”
“All the hardship and hard work gave us the fundamental drive to move forward and figure out what happens next,” says Martin. “It was a magical birthing ground for imagination and hope. Once you’re in the field and you’re bent over in the sun all day long, your brain gets super activated and you dream of something better than this. There’s all kinds of magical thoughts that bubble up when you’re out there.”
Though his first book was a tribute to his father, Martin says that his stories about being the child of immigrants and struggling with a dual identity can be relatable to anyone.
“I’ve been able to travel around with the first book for a couple of years,” says Martin. “And the most striking moment was at a school when one of the kids grabbed me, poked at the cover of the book and said, ‘That’s me! I’m Mexikid.’ It all came into focus. It’s about representation. He’s finally seeing himself in a book. I understand that this is not my story anymore. It’s their story. I was concerned that my story was too niche, too California. But the feedback has been universal. Kids understand the feeling of being caught between two worlds.”
Pedro Martin discusses his book, Mexikid Dreams, with Watsonville writer Jaime Cortez at Bookshop Santa Cruz, 4–5 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 16. Free.
