Martina Guzmán is Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights Race and Justice Journalism Fellow at Wayne State University Law School. She was awarded this prestigious honor in 2017.
Throughout her career Martina has focused on telling the stories of marginalized communities. In 2019 Martina received a reporting grant to explore the impact of race and segregation on water shutoffs in Detroit and Johannesburg, South Africa.
In 2015 she was the recipient of a reporting grant from the Michigan Economic Center to report on water issues, which addressed race, justice and new water technology in the 21st century.
Concerned about the lack of reporting on Detroit elderly, Martina applied for and was selected by The MetLife Foundation Journalists in Aging program as a reporting fellow, which enabled her to tell health related stories of Latinas in a rapidly aging society.
In 2011 Martina was awarded a German Marshall Fund Journalism fellowship which allowed her to create the multi-media journalism project, The Detroit-Berlin Connection. The series was awarded best series by the Michigan Broadcasters Association and won first place for Best Investigative series from the Associated Press of Michigan.
From 2008 to 2015 Martina worked at WDET, Detroit’s NPR affiliate. There, she was awarded the 2009 Best State Wide Individual Reporter by the Associated Press. While at WDET she became the correspondent for The Takeaway, a nationally syndicated news show produced by Public Radio International.
Martina has produced and directed two documentaries—“Milagros: Made In Mexico,” a film shot in Guanajuato, Mexico about women left behind in rural villages when their loved ones migrate to the United States out of economic necessity. The women portrayed in the film work hard to maintain close family ties, and balancing their new roles as heads of household and struggle to keep themselves out of poverty.
Milagros: Made In Mexico” won Best Documentary on matters relating to marginalized people at the Black International Cinema in Berlin, Germany in 2013.
Her second feature documentary “The Accidental Mummies of Guanajuato,” tells the story of the largest collection of accidental mummies in the Americas and their influence on Mexican popular culture. The film aired on Detroit PBS in 2010.
Martina is a sought after speaker and has been a guest lecturer at the American Embassy in Berlin, Germany, Brown, Columbia and Duke University, as well as the University of Notre Dame, Ohio State, The University of Michigan and the University Texas-Austin and many others. She is the proud daughter of Mexican immigrants and a graduate of Journalism School at Columbia University in New York City.
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