Alma is a Member of the Actors Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Television Arts and Sciences. She holds a Ph.D. in Drama from Stanford University, an M.F.A. in Acting from U.S.C., and a B.A. in Theatre from Whittier College. She is a former Dartmouth College Cesar Chavez Dissertation Fellow and a Fulbright Scholar. Her acting career spans over 4 decades of work in film, television and theatre. She has appeared on Broadway, Off Broadway, in regional theaters across the country and on Mexican and European stages.
Most recently, her films include Clemency, the winner of the 2019 Sundance Film Festival "Grand Jury Award", Ms. Purple - a 2019 Sundance selection, Tyger Tyger, Cake, Under Fire, Barbarosa and the iconic Chicano films Zoot Suit and Born in East.
On television/streaming, credits include recurring Guest-Star roles in the hit Netflix series Gentefied (Seasons 1 & 2), Amazon series Undone, AMC limited series, The Terror Infamy and the premier season of F/X series The Bridge which was awarded a Peabody Award for Season 1. Other roles include Queen Sugar, I Love Dick, MacGyver, Gray’s Anatomy, American Crime: People v OJ Simpson, Good Behavior, and the Peabody Award winning drama Corridos: Tales of Passion & Revolution.
A longtime artistic collaborator of Luis Valdez and El Teatro Campesino, she has been the lead actress in many of Valdez’s most significant work including Zoot Suit for stage and film, Corridos: Tales of Passion and Revolution for stage and PBS TV, Ballad of a Soldier, I Don’t Have to Show You Any Stinkin’ Badges, La Gran Carpa de los Rasquachis and Fin del Mundo.
A perennial student, she has studied with acting masters Lee Strasberg, Jerzi Grotowski, Ariane Mnouchkine, Augusto Boal, Anna Deveare Smith, Patsy Rodenburg and attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (London). In Mexico, she studied with Hector Mendoza and Luis De Tavira at the Centro Universitario de Teatro (C.U.T.) at the National University of Mexico and at the University of Guadalajara, Theatre Department.
A published author, her research and book manuscript examines the interstices of Chicanx and Latin American popular-political theatre. Recent articles include “Pancho Villa’s Head: The Mexican Revolution in the Chicano Theatrical Imagination”, Open Borders to a Revolution: Culture, Politics, and Migration, published by Smithsonian Scholarly Press and "Zoot Suit in Mexico City: Mapping A New American Theatre", (Re) Positioning the Latina/o Americas: Theatrical Histories and Cartographies of Power, published by Southern Illinois University Press.
Dr. Martinez is a proud member of SAG AFTRA, AEA, SDC and ANDA, the Mexican actors’ union. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of La Verne and sits on the board of LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in Los Angeles and the advisory board Farmworker Justice and the National Association of Latinx Arts and Culture. She is a proud Mexican-born immigrant from Monclova, Coahuila and resides Los Angeles, CA.