Nana Martinez

Ramona "Nana" Diamond Martinez is the main protagonist of L'Academie. She is a contestant on the reality show, L'Academie.

Nana was born in the Dominican Republic, and raised there until she was four years old, when her mother, Reneé Martinez, passed away. She was sent to live with her uncle, Manuel Vega, in America, but was removed from his care and placed into foster care when she was seven. After three years spent in foster care, Nana was adopted by Emilio Peña. She lives with him in their Chicago apartment, above Emilio's tattoo studio.

Nana is a junior at the Chicago Academy of Art and Design.

Early Life
Nana was born in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, on October 31st, 2002, to Raul Martinez, a postal worker, and Reneé Martinez, a nurse. Her sister, Angelica, had been born in 2000, and her brother, José, was born in 2001.

In December of 2002, Raul left his family to live with another woman, leaving Reneé to raise their children with the help of an American friend from work, Diamond Howard.

In April of 2005, Reneé was diagnosed with kidney failure. To provide full-time care for the children, Diamond moved into the Martinez home, serving as their second mother.

In November of 2006, after over a year of successful dialysis, Reneé died in her sleep after experiencing a brain aneurysm. Although Diamond wanted to adopt the Martinez children and become their permanent care taker, she was financially unable, and instead, sent them to live with their uncle, Manuel Vega, in Chicago, Illinois.

Manuel was only barely more financially capable of caring for his sister's children, often unable to pay the electricity bill or feed them. Nana began to steal from her classmates' lunchboxes in an attempt to keep herself fed, but was quickly caught by a teacher, who approached her uncle. As a punishment, he refused to feed her at home, until she had "learned the lesson." In response, Nana stole from the local convenience store on her way to and from school each day.

Severely malnourished and underfed, Nana was routinely underperforming in her physical education class, but deflected questions from staff. However, she began to excel in her art classes. After surpassing the other students in class with her abilities, she was encouraged by her art teacher, Mrs. Delgado, to forge her own artistic path. She took an interest in drawing and painting flowers, taking inspiration from Georgia O'Keefe and Frida Kahlo, as well as her biology teacher's field journals.

Nana was praised at school for her artistic ability, and had her pieces featured in numerous school art shows. Her uncle worried about her future job prospects, and discouraged her from drawing. She refused to bring her work home, gifting it instead to Mrs. Delgado, fearing that if she did, it would be destroyed.

In September of 2009, Nana's grandfather passed away, leaving Manuel with a sizable inheritance. He used the money to move the household into a new house in the Chicago suburbs. While moving them out of their former apartment, he came across a stash of food that Nana had hidden in her dresser, all of it stolen from local business. Much of it was half-eaten, rotten, or even completely identifiable, destroyed by mold and pests that had been plaguing their home for months. Manuel called Nana into the room, demanding she explain herself. When she was unable to, he tipped over the dresser onto her, crushing her leg in two places.

After telling her nurse what had happened, Nana was promptly removed from her uncle's care, along with her siblings. She was quickly discharged from the hospital, and sent to a foster home in Waukegan, Illinois. José went to live with foster parents in Naperville, Illinois, and Angelica went to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Foster Care
For the first few months in her foster home, Nana was slowed down with her cast, and was unable to play with her foster siblings - Craig Wallach and Emily Beers - risking severe pain if she tried to run about with the energetic duo. Her foster parents, Christina and Warren Reynolds, were unsuccessful in their attempts to get her to interact with the pair in other ways, and eventually left Nana to her art. In December of 2009, Roxie and Lucie Fernandez, a pair of siblings from Chicago, came to join the Reynolds household.

Roxie was similarly artistically-inclined, and spent much of her time with Nana, drawing in the shade while Lucie played with Craig and Emily. They became extremely close, coveting their shared room and calling it their fort. At school, they refused to play with other children, much preferring each other's company. They were split up in classes, but protested the separation, and sought the other out on the playground at recess. Christina and Warren worried that the two were socially stunted, and wanted them to become more friendly. It was soon implemented that during school hours, they were disallowed to speak with each other. If they were caught doing so, they were given lunchtime detention at school, and grounded at home.

Nana was frustrated, feeling as though her foster parents didn't understand her friendship with Roxie. Cut off from her best and only friend, Nana became harsh towards outsiders, not wanting anybody else to replace Roxie. She lost all interest in schoolwork, no longer motivated by the promise of seeing Roxie at lunch. Nana hid under desks and in corners, preferring to draw during class. At recess, while Roxie walked the track with her new friends, Nana sat under their favorite shade tree, drawing the clovers that cropped up across the field.

In January of 2009, Craig and Emily were adopted as a pair to a couple in St. Paul, Minnesota, and two new children, Tyrone Campbell and Jessica Cooper, were sent to live with the Reynoldses. In April, Lucie left the foster home to live with a couple in Chicago, without Roxie.

Devastated over the loss of her sister, Roxie withdrew entirely. She stopped speaking to Nana at home, and became cold to everybody else. At school, her friends noticed the change, and abandoned her. Still unable to sit with Nana at their tree, she walked the track alone. Nana felt furious that Roxie didn't pay more attention to her, feeling as though she was a more than adequate replacement for Lucie. She began to lash out in anger, leaving her icy facade behind. She started arguments with her peers, and caused loud disruptions in class. She wanted a spectacle, so Roxie couldn't ignore her anymore.

Throughout her time at the foster home, Nana had meetings with several prospective families. In her first meetings, she was skittish and nervous around the families, always shifting and squirming during their time together. Once she became more comfortable in her foster home, she opened up a bit more, but after Roxie's arrival, no longer wanted to be adopted. Instead, she revolted against the idea that she could be separated from Roxie, and tried to make herself as unadoptable as possible.

However, in May of 2009, Roxie was moved to a new foster home in Gary, Indiana, and Nana was alone, with only the company of her foster family. She resisted their attempts to make her feel better, feeling as though nothing could fill the void that had been left by Roxie. Shortly after Roxie's adoption, two more foster siblings were added, Sequoia Heron and Jorja Cross.

Nana developed a close attachment to Sequoia, who walked her to school each morning and introduced her to her own friends' younger siblings. In the afternoons, Sequoia came to collect Nana, walking her home and taking her to the park afterwards. Along with the rest of the foster family, Sequoia attended each of Nana's school art shows, and showed genuine admiration for Nana's artistic ability.

In June of 2010, Sequoia graduated from high school, and in July, aged out of foster care. She promised to visit Nana on her birthday and the holidays, and moved back to Chicago, living an apartment with several of her friends from high school.

Shortly before Nana's eighth birthday, Sequoia was reported missing in Chicago. Christina and Warren traveled to Chicago to help law enforcement with their search, but returned empty-handed. They attempted to explain the situation to their foster children, but Nana was unable to wrap her head around the idea. When Sequoia didn't show for her birthday party, Nana refused to leave her room for the rest of the celebration, heartbroken that her idol had abandoned her. Even the promise of a reunion with Roxie, who came from Gary for the occasion, wasn't enough to lure her out.

Nana became deeply anxious. She worried that at any moment, one of her foster family members could go missing and never return to her. At assemblies on stranger danger, Nana would become physically ill at the idea that her family could go missing, and would be inconsolable for hours afterwards. She became intensely paranoid, feeling uncomfortable in a room unless she knew every occupant personally, and had checked anywhere a kidnapper could "hide." Going to the bathroom was often a ten-minute long process, necessitating Christina checking in the linen closet, behind the shower curtain, and underneath the sink.

In an attempt to abate her fears, Warren brought her books from his job at the local library. He showed her Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown, trying to empower her into feeling as though she could help solve the mystery. Nana became obsessed with trying to put the pieces together, but was never given enough information to take an actual crack at solving the case. Instead, she pored over the books for hours, trying to see what she was missing.

In December of 2010, the Chicago police found Sequoia's body in a motel in Peoria. Her cause of death was determined to be a suicide.

Nana's anxiety became focused around death, instead. Her drawings were occupied with her theories of the afterlife, shaky illustrations of a heaven and hell, doodles in the margins of her assignments sometimes focused on an eternal field of puppies and kittens, sometimes were filled with a resounding darkness, only little eyes peeping out from the eternal shadow. Christina took her to grief counseling weekly, but Nana didn't want to make progress. She wanted to draw pictures of dead flowers and bodies, occasionally painting Sequoia's face in a bed of wilted poppies. The counselor expressed deep concern, and Nana's social worker feared that Nana may never recover, forcing her into foster care forever.

Instead, she was introduced to Emilio Peña, a thirty-year-old widower from Chicago. His wife had been pregnant at the time of her passing, seven years prior, and while Emilio felt unable to marry, wanted to welcome the child he had never had into his life. He specifically wanted to adopt a child who had also experienced loss, and found a perfect companionship in Nana, a fellow Dominican who knew loss well.

Nana took to Emilio right away. He refused to force her into conversation, just sitting and drawing with her for hours at a time. She loved his drawings, completely enchanted when he told her that he was a professional artist and lived over an art studio. At their second meeting, she confidently approached him to ask if she could color in the phoenix tattoo on his arm.

In November of 2012, Emilio officially adopted Nana.

Life in Chicago
Nana moved into Emilio's Chicago apartment, situated above his tattoo studio. She spent hours after school in the studio, leaning over his shoulder and watching the process. Although she longed to be a part of it, she settled for focusing on her art.

Emilio was pleased with her artistic inclination, and encouraged her to apply for local arts schools for middle school, but Nana was hesitant. She feared that schools wouldn't want to accept her, especially as her art was still stuck in a phase of grief. Still, at Emilio's suggestion, she submitted a portfolio of decaying flowers and greenery-ridden skulls.

A month after entering her portfolio, she was contacted by the Chicago Early Arts Development Academy, and asked to come and interview. Shortly after, she was invited to an open house, where her work was displayed for the admittance board.

The next month, Nana was invited to attend the Chicago Early Arts Development Academy the following school year, and gladly accepted.

Nana had trouble making friends at her new school, and felt isolated and alone. She missed Sequoia and Roxie, and was even craving the company of Tyrone and Jessica. Emilio worried over his daughter, and tried to surprise her with a visit from Roxie and her family. However, in their time apart, Roxie had blossomed into the antithesis of Nana. She no longer was interested in art, preferring to run track and swim, excited for the opportunity to try out for her school's cheerleading squad. She feared Nana's pet tarantula, and hated the morbidity of Nana's art. The visit only worsened Nana's feelings of isolation.

She continued to spend most of her time in Emilio's studio, painting flowers creeping up skeletons while her father drew similar designs on his clients. Nana felt as though she had nothing in common with her peers, who preferred her drawings of living things to those of her more decomposed subjects. Her teachers, however, continued to encourage her work. Her drawing teacher, Mrs. Major, praised her audacity with her work, and showed her work by Frida Kahlo and other women entrenched in grief.

Nana began to idolize Frida Kahlo, insisting on using Emilio's computer to study her paintings. For her twelfth birthday, Emilio took her to the Frida Kahlo museum in Mexico City, where Nana announced her intent to become a great artist, but no better than Frida Kahlo. She began to fill in her eyebrows to replicate Kahlo's famous unibrow, and took a deep interest in biographies of Kahlo.

Her teachers contacted Emilio, worried that Nana was becoming too stuck in her morbidity. They feared her books about Kahlo were too "adult" and asked Emilio to stop her from reading them, hoping if she gave them up, she might stand more of a chance at making friends. Emilio refused and threatened to withdraw Nana from CEADA. The administrators backed down, but only after they made Emilio take them away before she went to school.

Nana was given a quota of students to speak to each day, and would receive candy from Emilio if she met her quota each day. She struggled to find conversation topics that were both socially appropriate and interesting to her classmates. Finally, she was able to strike up a conversation about Regular Show with Daisy Meadows, a fellow eighth grader. They developed a close friendship, which administration approved of. Daisy was a geeky and somewhat awkward child, who enjoyed making sculptures of her favorite cartoons in class, and disliked her actual portraiture subjects, preferring to doodle anime vampires in her sketchbooks instead.

In spring, Nana and Daisy were both accepted to CEADA's sister school, the Chicago Academy of Art and Design, for high school.

Over the summer, Daisy and Nana enjoyed having nobody but each other for company. Without school, there was no quota for Nana to fill anymore, and she could enjoy spending time with just her one friend. They sat at the park for hours and drew together, before going home and eating Kraft in front of the TV while their favorite cartoons played.

They began high school uneventfully, although Nana's conversational quota followed her into CAAD. She tried to connect with her fellow freshmen, but found that while many of her middle school classmates had followed them to CAAD, many were truly fresh - some coming from as far as France to enjoy the benefits of a CAAD education. It provided an opportunity for Nana to gain control in her relationships, giving tours of the buildings and sitting with the newbies at lunch. She sketched out unfriendly faces and drew complex maps of the school, using Google to translate them into her new friends' native languages.

Daisy had no such interest. At lunch, she shoved on headphones and hunkered down to watch anime while Nana detailed the best bathroom to smoke in for the French students. She disliked many of Nana's new friends, arguing that they were too preppy for her tastes, even though Nana promised that they were cool.

With her new entourage, Nana felt invincible. She loved going out after school to diners and thrift shops, completely abandoning her afternoon drawing sessions to compare styles with her friends. At winter break, she tried to invite her friends over to watch cartoons with her and Daisy, but was met with no reply. She figured they were all enjoying their holidays, and tried not to mind it too much.

When the break ended, Nana was disappointed to find that her friends wanted nothing to do with her. Old classmates from middle school showed them the art Nana had been too fearful to display, ridiculing the skulls and wilted poppies that decorated her canvases. Nana was left with only Daisy, who reaffirmed that making new friends had been a bad idea.

Nana hated everything she painted, feeling it was responsible for her loneliness. She leaned heavily on Daisy, who couldn't coach her out of her creative slump. Eventually, it became an all-encompassing slump, causing Nana to lose interest in television, family, Daisy, even food. She lost weight, hiding in hoodies and baggy clothes to avoid concerning her dad, and started biting her nails to cope with her stress. Her grades began to dip, and administration called an intervention.

Threatened with expulsion, Nana had a month to bring up her grades. She begged Emilio to unenroll her and send her to public school, but he was unconvinced.

Instead, he took her back to Waukegan for lunch with the Reynoldses. They pleaded with her to continue at CAAD, delighted to see the strides she had made apart from them. However, Nana was still discouraged and returned to Chicago with no more motivation.

The next day, Emilio took her to the cemetery that Sequoia had been interred at. Imploring her to use the materials he had brought for her, Emilio asked her to create something she would be proud to show Sequoia, and Nana reluctantly obliged.

Inspired by Frida Kahlo, Nana painted a self-portrait, surrounded by sequoia trees and wilted daisies, half of her face bone, and the other half flesh. It was enough for her to decide that she didn't want to leave CAAD, no matter how discouraged she felt.

With a combination of therapy, medication, and no longer caring, Nana was brought back to a healthier state. She continued to enjoy her coursework at CAAD, excelling in all of her classes once again. Her advisor recommended that she apply to L'Academie, and in November of 2018, Nana completed her Academy application, being accepted on June 1st, 2019.