Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Ruben Martinez (born 1962, Los Angeles) is a journalist, author, and musician. He is the son of Rubén Martínez, a Mexican American who worked as a lithographer, and Vilma Angula, a Salvadoran psychologist. Among the themes covered in his works are immigrant life and globalization, the cultural and political history of Los Angeles (Martinez''s hometown), the civil wars of the 1980s in Central America (his mother is a native of El Salvador), and Mexican politics and culture (he is a second-generation Mexican-American on the father''s side of his family. From 1986 until 1993 he was a writer and editor at LA Weekly; becoming the first Latino on staff there. Subsequently, he became a contributing essayist to National Public Radio, and a TV host for the Los Angeles-based politics and culture series, Life & Times, for which he won an Emmy Award. His essays, opinions, and reportage have appeared in most of the country''s major newspapers and magazines.