SOMEDAY MIJA, YOU’LL LEARN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A WHORE AND A WORKING WOMAN

In this debut memoir, a seasoned labor organizer and negotiator details the oppressive discrimination she witnessed and experienced.

In her line of work, Martinez sat across from her share of domineering bosses. Her book, broken up into five stories, highlights the union representative jobs she worked in Oregon and California. For example, as chief spokeswoman for the District Council of Trade Unions, she spearheaded a campaign against Portland when the city planned to cut health care benefits. Discrimination often played a part in city and union bosses’ shady decisions, such as a White building-trade rep “dump trucking” a Black man’s harassment claims—discarding them while giving the impression of a full investigation. As a Mexican woman, Martinez herself has suffered racism and sexism. She made complaints against a male boss with wandering hands while another manager, irate that she was leaving, blackballed her from other job prospects. The author sadly offers only a few glimpses of her personal life. In her opening story, Martinez recounts that, as children, she and her siblings took the brunt of a stranger’s racist jabs at a baseball game. Life-changing events, from her stepfather’s alcoholism to her mother’s unspecified mental illness, receive no more than passing mentions. But Martinez effectively showcases her negotiation tactics. She took inspiration from such works as Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, including having employees don blank stickers to signify their “muted speech.” As the author writes in her engrossing book, “Small, direct hits went a long way, left open a vast array of responses for either side to make, and, most of all, minimized risk if a group performed them.” Martinez takes a largely no-nonsense approach when discussing unaccommodating employers and city officials and the times she’s been “run out” of town. But there are occasions when she’s entertainingly flippant, giving certain bosses farcical names like “tongue-wagger” and “office dinosaur.”

This sharp autobiographical account deftly illuminates prejudice in the American workplace.