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As family stories go, the one Yvonne Martinez learned about her great-grandfather — killed 100 years ago this month by a Utah sheriff’s posse — is a compelling one.

It’s one of many family stories, Martinez said, her grandmother Mary told her before her death. Those stories, she said, uncovered a history of domestic violence and abuse woven through generations in her family.

“You can be on top of a story or you can be inside the story,” Martinez said in an interview. “When you’re inside the story, that’s where the pain is, and sometimes the joy, too.”

Martinez, a longtime labor activist born and raised in Utah, transformed those stories into a memoir — or, as she put it, “a living project” — with the title “Someday Mija, You’ll Learn the Difference Between A Whore and A Working Woman.” The book will be released Tuesday by She Writes Press.

The book, written in essay format, is a keen observation of transgenerational trauma — and how Martinez was able to recognize that trauma and use it for the better in her activist work.

Martinez referred to the idea of trauma and resistance being a double helix, “bound together and both passed down.”

The ‘Millard Bandit’

As a child, Martinez heard stories about her great-grandfather, Cirilo Rico, the family patriarch who was killed on Oct. 2, 1922.

Her great-grandmother, Mercedes, told stories of hiding Cirilo under a tarp, and that he was being…