Xiuhtezcatl Roske-Martinez also known as initial X, was born May 9, 2000, in Colorado, but moved to Mexico in his infancy.
When Martinez was a child, his first movement into activism was an appeal in 2009 to a Colorado city council to prohibit pesticides in city parks. He explains, “I was like, yo, like let’s do something about this, so I called up my mom. I was like, yo, Mom, help me get a bunch of kids together to do something about this…And, like, we changed the law.”
Martinez grew up as a vegetarian and has never eaten any meat and is now a vegan. He has spoken out about the meat industry stating, “I’m very passionate about the idea that reconnecting to our food is a really important step towards healing our relationship with our planet and breaking free from a corrupt, broken food system that targets marginalized communities and profits off of our suffering.”
Martinez lived with his family in Boulder, Colorado, though in 2019, he moved to Portland, Oregon. His mother, Tamara Roske, was one of the founders of the Earth Guardian Community Resource Center, a high school on Maui, Hawaii. Roske served as Executive Director of Earth Guardians until May 2021. Martinez has two younger siblings; a sister, Tonantzin, and a brother, Itzcuauhtli. His father, Siri Martinez, raised him with an appreciation for the tradition of the Mexica, one of the historic Indigenous peoples of Mexico.
As part of this heritage, Martinez believes the individual is a part of the natural world; therefore, he sees abuse of nature as “the tearing apart of a fragile and revered system.” Martinez was awarded the U.S. Volunteer Service Award by President Barack Obama in 2013. A few years later in 2017, he was included on Rolling Stone’s “25 under 25” list of young people who will change the world in 2018. He also received a Generation Change Award at the MTV Europe Music Awards. And lastly in December 2018, Remezcla named Martinez to their list of “30 Latinxs Who Made an Impact in their Communities in 2018.
