First Voice Generation Documentary

Cynthia Martinez was born in Holland, the daughter of teenage migrants. She had a difficult family situation, and growing up around classmates with more opportunities highlighted this. However, after she got involved in sports, it was at these teammates' houses that their parents asked her about her dreams and goals. Her parents were supportive, but they were busy working to support the family and had no experience with higher education.

Cynthia attended West Ottawa Public Schools from Kindergarten through 12th grade and felt that few students looked like her. She decided that she wanted to be an astronaut. When she told her high school counselor of this goal, the counselor responded that she would have to get much better grades. She applied for and was accepted to the Hope College Upward Bound program. This and sports became safe spaces for her through High School.

Wanting to get away from Holland, she was accepted into the WMU Aviation program through a 1st generation college student program. About 2.5 years into her schooling, just after she received her pilot's license, she looked at the amount of debt she had accumulated. She switched to the Aviation Management program and graduated with that degree.

Journey to a Documentary Filmmaker

To pay off her student debt, Cynthia took a job as a live-in nanny, first in Chicago and then in New York City. She had plenty of experience taking care of her younger siblings, and the big city salary for nannies is in the six figures. She worked for many well-known families in NYC, but wondered about her purpose in life.

Having always enjoyed telling stories, she applied for and was accepted to the Master's program at Columbia School of Journalism. She soon realized that most of her peers were experienced journalists working for organizations like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the United Nations. They were there to hone their craft, and she was trying to learn journalism. She spent every office hour for every class asking for help. After graduating from Columbia, she took a job with Univision (the Spanish-language TV network). While working on TV, she developed the idea of making a documentary film about first-generation college students. She started to fundraise and line up resources for a documentary.

As the pandemic started to change education, she asked the Hope Upward Bound organization if she could film some of their students' journeys to college. Upward Bound agreed, and Cynthia started to film.

After wanting to get away from the Dutch culture in Holland, MI, she married a Dutch immigrant while living in NYC. Her husband works in the finance industry and was transferred to Chicago just before the Pandemic. When the pandemic closed the offices in Chicago, they moved to Holland to work remotely.

The film First Voice Generation was released in October, 2023. It has won multiple awards at Film Festivals. Cynthia continues to travel and show the film to raise money for scholarship programs and to increase support for funding programs like Upward Bound.