Finding Pedro, How a ‘Mexikid’ Turned Family Stories into a Journey of Empathy

About the Author

In the quiet of his Kansas City basement, Pedro Martín began writing stories he never expected anyone to read. They were small vignettes on three-by-five cards, snapshots of a childhood spent between California strawberry fields and a Mexican home filled with laughter, sacrifice, and music.

He was a longtime Hallmark illustrator, going through a 27-year career, writing in his basement. He wasn’t dreaming of book deals or national tours. He certainly didn’t imagine that those stories would one day become Mexikid, an award-winning graphic memoir, and Mexican Dreams, a powerful follow-up that shines light on migrant families, labor, and the invisible hands that feed a nation.

“I wasn’t thinking anybody would ever read it,” he shares with a smile. “It was just for me.”

Those small stories about growing up in a Mexican sharecropper family, picking strawberries, crossing borders, laughing through hardship,  eventually made their way onto Facebook. The response surprised him. People connected deeply with the humor, heart, and honesty. His wife noticed something else: he was happier than she’d ever seen him.

That encouragement nudged Pedro to take a leap. The result was Mexikid, a graphic memoir that began as a family legend and became a powerful, widely loved book. Its success led to Mexican Dreams, which dives even deeper into his family’s experience as migrant strawberry pickers and the unseen labor behind our food.

But the turning point in his storytelling came from a simple question. When editor Kate Harrison first emailed him, she asked whether he preferred Peter or Pedro. He told her it didn’t matter. She pushed back.

“How can you tell a story about yourself if you don’t even know who you are?” He shares.  

That moment changed everything. What began as a fun, comedic adventure became a journey into identity, an exploration of what it means
to be Mexican American, to inhabit two languages, two cultures, and, sometimes, two names.

His second book, Mexican Dreams, went through a similar transformation. Pedro also confronted painful family history. The hardest chapter to write, he recalls, was his father’s journey to the United States, being caught by immigration and sent back, a story his father always told with jokes and bravado.

“Mexican dads love to tell stories, and all the stories are funny,” he shares. “But I knew when I was hearing the stories that couldn’t have been that funny. I knew he must have been frightened.”

To tell that story truthfully, Pedro had to peel back the humor and imagine the fear and dignity beneath it, honoring his parents without hiding their struggle.

His research led him to the 1960 documentary “Harvest of Shame,” which revealed how little has changed for migrant workers.

“It answers so many questions about the plight of the migrant worker and how it hasn’t changed,” he shares. “Here we are, 60–70 years later, and it’s still the same.”

One day, standing in a supermarket, he looked at rows of strawberries and suddenly saw his family again. Every fruit and vegetable in a supermarket, he realized, carries a hidden story of someone like his mother, his father, his siblings.

“All these different fruits and vegetables were all picked by somebody,” he shares. “A family like mine.” 

More than anything, Pedro hopes readers leave his books with empathy. He wants kids and their parents to see migrant families not as distant others, but as people with dreams, fears, and love.

For Pedro, his books are more than entertainment. They are an invitation to sit with our elders, trace the stories of where we come from, honor the hands that bring our food to the table, and carry those traditions forward with open hearts.

“I’m hoping that if a kid picks the book up, maybe they share it with their parents, so they can have a conversation about it,” he shares. 

Pedro Martín is the Newbery Honor Award, Pura Belpre Author and Illustrator Award-winning creator of the graphic memoir Mexikid, based on his online comic series of the same name. Mexikid has landed on many end-of-the-year best-
of lists, including The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Kirkus Reviews, 
Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, and Booklist. Pedro is a former
Hallmark artist who lives with his wife in Kansas City. Read Pedro’s chronicles of his life growing up Mexican American online at  Mexikid Stories @Mexikidstories or at Mexikid.com