Springtown City Council member Ted Martinez talks about his heritage for Hispanic Heritage Month

Tears welled in Springtown City Council member Ted Martinez’s eyes when he talked about his family and the hardships they had to endure.

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month isn’t exactly at the top of Martinez’s agenda, but he said the designated month allows him to reflect on his family and the path they created for him.

“The people in my past, whatever adversities they had and challenges, they were able to transcend those and not let it stop them,” Martinez said. “On the calendar when I see it, it just reminds me of that.”

Martinez spoke to the Epigraph about his heritage in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, which started being observed nationally in 1968 and takes place from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

Through his grandparents, Martinez has Spanish and French ancestry. His Spanish heritage comes from his grandfather’s family, who were part of the land grants’ administration in northern New Mexico.

“They had more challenges than I’ll ever have,” he said. “When I say they paved the way, those were the doors that were opened for me personally to be very comfortable with what I do and support family and community.”

According to the New Mexico Commission of Public Records, land grants were given to individuals and communities from 1598 to 1846 during the Spanish and Mexican periods of New Mexico’s history.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which in 1848 established New Mexico as a U.S. state, was supposed to respect property rights of the Hispanic population but was not honored in many cases, according to the U.S. Forest Service’s website. Some grant lands were declared public domain while others went into private ownership before being sold to the government.

Martinez moved to Springtown in 1999. He first got involved with Springtown government by serving on the Zoning Board of Adjustments, then the Planning and Zoning Commission followed by city council. Since the early 2000s, he has served on the council on-and-off for multiple years.

He is the first and only Hispanic person to serve on the city council, but he said he hasn’t really thought about it that much. He hopes his presence on council can encourage people and show them that their ethnicity doesn’t have to hold them back.

“That might give them the wherewithal to step forward also and either serve or take the opportunities to do things they may have thought, ‘Well, I can’t do that because of who I am,’” Martinez said. “No, you’re a person, and you have value, and your value is not necessarily based on what you see in the mirror.”

Martinez praised the current council for its diversity and said it’s important for people on governmental bodies to be relatable to the people they serve.

“Even though your desire is to have everybody together and the same, but the world is not that way,” he said. “There are different segments to communities such as ours, and being diverse on the council allows each of us to add our own elements to the community for them to see, ‘Oh, I can relate to a group that leads our community because they’re not just one cookie-cutter type of body.’”

He added, “You will always be able to be relatable to your community when you have diversity.”