Martin Sorrondeguy is a queer, Latinx punk. Latino Hardcore Punk Documentary , and is a top-notch photographer who has authored several books full of amazing photos he shot of bands from all over the world. Martin also happens to be a dedicated teacher who has been involved in radical education for decades, and puts as much passion into his classroom work as he is known for in punk.
Martin was one of the original inspirations for this column, and I am very grateful that he was willing to share part of his story as a teacher, a radical, and a punk, in all of its complicated, intersectional, interwoven, and inspirational glory. I actually did a history class and it was the history of subcultures in the United States from the s forward.
It started out with the Zoot suits, like the Pachuco Movement out of LA coming out of the jazz scene, and went into Beatniks and all this stuff, all the way to punk and hip-hop, and so on and so forth.
I loved that job, and then I did my teaching credential, and there was a period I was going to walk away from education but I kept getting sucked into it somehow. MRR: Wow. But it was a really amazing place to be, it was wild. I mean, two of the students, these two young girls, these punk girls, they jumped on a greyhound all the way to Austin, Texas to see Limp Wrist. Where I will basically take care of them, wherever I stay they stay.
MRR: Field trip! No problem. Martin: [ laughter ] …So let me just move forward into going into a more state run school…. MRR: …the school in Oakland. What was the difference in terms of how you were able to interact at that school with the people in charge of the school, the administration, the parents, the student population, and how did you reconcile those relationships with your own personal identities within punk, activism, and queer culture?
