Dr. Amy Andrea Martinez earned her masters and doctoral degree in Criminal Justice from the Criminal Justice Studies Department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. Her bachelors degree is in Sociology with an emphasis in Crime, Law, and Deviance from Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. As a first-generation, working-class, and system impacted Xicana from Southern California, her experiences inform her commitment to decolonial gang research on Mexican/Chicanx families and their associations and experiences with gang and street life.