Martinez is a native of Capulhuac, Mexico, and she is an undocumented immigrant who crossed the border from Juárez into the United States.
[1] She found a job in Philadelphia as a pastry chef in an Italian restaurant, where she met and married Benjamin Miller, a U.S.
[2] Martinez was fired from the restaurant when they discovered her undocumented status, and she began cooking food for other Mexican workers in her apartment.
[3] As demand grew for Martinez's home-made barbacoa, she and Miller began selling tacos from a pushcart on weekends.
[2] In 2017, Univision produced a Spanish-language podcast about Martinez, called Mejor vete, Cristina ("You Better Leave, Cristina"), which won Mejor Cobertura Multimedia (Best Multimedia Coverage) at the 2018 Ortega y Gasset Awards.