“Buenas tardes damas y caballeros,” welcomes Dual Immersion Modern World History teacher Edwin Martínez to his sixth period class. Though Martínez may be new to the PRHS campus this 2024-25 school year, he is no stranger to Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo County since making the move in 1996.

Born in 1977 in Santa Barbara in the Department of San Vincente in El Salvador, Martínez was born in the midst of the Salvadoran Civil War, instantly forced to face hardships. His father, Ricardo Chávez, was a doctor during the war, tending to both government and rebel soldiers. However, thinking he was in support of the rebels for aiding their injured soldiers, the government killed his father in front of his family when Martínez was only 4 years old. After his father’s death, Martínez’s mother, Mariana Martínez, along with some of his cousins left for Mexico while Martínez and his siblings remained in El Salvador with his grandparents.

“My mom first came to Mexico on her own with some of my cousins and left us behind because she didn’t have enough money, so she left me and my siblings with my grandparents in El Salvador.”
While in Mexico, Martínez’s mother worked for six months, earning enough to allow Martínez and his family to travel to Mexico and join her. On their way, they migrated 1,010 miles from San Salvador through Guatemala before arriving in Mexico City to reunite with his mother.

During their journey and even after arriving in Mexico, Martínez was forced to remain in hiding and learn a new way of life out of fear of being deported back to his war-torn home country.

“No one supported anyone that was a refugee, not even in Guatemala or Mexico. So if we had been caught by immigration, we would have been deported back to El Salvador. Once we got to Mexico, we were taught how to speak in the right accent and not use our native words.”

Martínez completed small amounts of kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade before making the journey across Tijuana into the U.S. when he was 9 years old. 

His first residence in the US was in South Central Los Angeles, a city in the middle of an era defined by gangs, drugs, riots, and violence. Martínez was able to avoid these influences by using sports as an escape. He and his friends would often spend their free time playing baseball, basketball, football, and even kickball.

Nearing high school graduation, Martínez began searching for a place to continue his education. His sister had been attending Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo at the time and he had made many trips up to visit her. This is where he fell in love with the area. Martínez was offered a small running scholarship from Cal Poly, but had to reject it as he was still considered an El Salvador resident. After graduating from Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles in 1996, he attended Cuesta College where he received his Associates degree in teaching. In 1998, Martínez finally received his green card, officially being a US citizen. In 1999, he reapplied for Cal Poly and was later accepted in 2000. At Cal Poly, he received his Bachelor’s degree in both liberal arts and teaching.

While finishing his schooling at Cal Poly, Martínez took the job of a long term sub at Pacheco Elementary in SLO teaching 5th grade. The following year, he chose to work at Georgia Brown Elementary as a 4th grade teacher.

“I lived in San Luis Obispo at that time, but I just fell in love with the kids and the community in Paso Robles. The pay would have been better in SLO, but the community of Paso and the principal at the time, Mrs. Pahler, convinced me to work at Georgia Brown.”

He continued to work at Georgia Brown for the next 10 years before moving over to George H. Flamson Middle School as a 7th and 8th grade DI History teacher. He continues to teach at the school, now under the name Lewis Flamson Junior High, and is in his 9th year there as well as his first year here at PRHS.

Although Martínez teaches history, it wasn’t always his specialty. Though his schooling was limited in Mexico, he did take advantage of the more progressive math taught compared to the U.S.

“Math is a little more advanced in Mexico than in the US. By first grade I already knew my multiplication tables, could do long division, knew how to work with fractions, etc.”

Thanks to this, he found his love for teaching. Due to him being ahead of his classmates in Los Angeles, he was often asked by his teachers to help students around the classroom. He found out he enjoyed helping others learn and decided he wanted to be a teacher.

Although Martínez was proficient in math, he never felt good enough at the subject to teach it. This is when he found his love for history in the 10th grade.

“For whatever reason, I began to love history. I had a really good teacher when I was in 10th grade of high school. They really enjoyed it and taught with a passion. That made me even more passionate about the subject and I thought it would be fun to teach.”

Like many, the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 hit Martínez hard. In pain from sitting in his office chair for 6 hours a day, he started occasionally walking laps around the Lewis Flamson Junior High track. This progressively grew into daily runs around his neighborhood. He began to feel as if he was once again in high school, growing a sensation to have the endurance to run forever. He set running goals for himself and slowly increased his mileage.

Shortly after restrictions from the pandemic shut down, Martínez signed up for a local half marathon. After he ran the half marathon, he decided to try a marathon and see what happened.

In 2021, Martínez signed up for the LA marathon and impressed himself with his time. After doing the LA marathon, he heard talks about the infamous Boston marathon and chose to do more research about it.

“At that time, to be honest, I didn’t even know Boston. I knew nothing about it and everyone was talking about it so I started searching more about it. I thought it sounded cool so I went to sign up but found out you had to qualify first. That’s when running got way more serious and I had a bigger end goal to reach for.”

With a goal to qualify for Boston, Martínez signed up for many marathons including the Santa Rosa marathon, Ventura Marathon, Surf City Marathon, a marathon in Huntington Beach, and even a marathon in Honolulu, all in hopes of qualifying for Boston.

It wasn’t until August of 2024 that Martínez finally qualified, running 3:11:37 in Santa Rosa.

“After I found out I qualified, I bumped my fists and looked up in the sky. It was probably one of the happiest feelings I’ve ever felt.”

Martínez ran in the Chicago marathon earlier this year in October and will later run in the Boston marathon in the following year in April. In addition to qualifying for Boston, Martínez qualified for the Berlin marathon in 2025 and intends on running in September.

In marathon running, there are six major marathons: Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London, New York City, and Tokyo. Martínez has already run or qualified for three and hopes to one day run all six.

Like many marathon runners, Martínez is all about grit and achieving your goals. He actively helps and encourages students in all his classes to carry out and attain any ambitions they might have.

“If you have someone that has put you in that position to succeed, someone that has sacrificed themselves for you, you have to look at that as a motivator. If you start using someone that has struggled a lot as a motivator, you’ll 100% achieve your goals.”