Ricardo Romero

I attended Hall Elementary, Pajaro Junior High and Watsonville High School (WHS). I was WHS class of 1973. I do not believe MAIA existed, yet. However, Mike Sullivan was already at WHS, and he became my counselor and one of my WHS mentors. I owe my Harvard acceptance to Mike, without a doubt. I have a mini-biography that I will share. Then, I will present a few anecdotes that inspired me. Interestingly, like Dr. Alicia Ventura (sister of Ana Ventura Phares), I was ranked fourth at WHS (I had 2 B's) and became a Family Medicine physician, too.

My parents were illiterate, undocumented farm workers from Mexico in the 1940s. Due to my mother's Catholic beliefs, she had 13 children. Two died from congenital defects in childhood and one drowned as a two-year-old. Seven of my surviving nine siblings were high school dropouts. I was number five, the first high school graduate in the family.

Due to our poverty, I was obligated to work to supplement our meager family income. I toiled in the Watsonville, California fruit and vegetable farm fields 50-70 hours a week every summer and 20 hours weekly during the school year from age 7 to 20. The classroom was my sanctuary. Every summer I longed for September, and every year I dreaded June. As a child, I vowed to go to college to escape my impoverished environment.

To effect my goal and dream, I made sure I was the top student in almost all my classes in high school. My efforts paid off. In April 1973, my high school senior year, I received admission letters to Harvard, Stanford and Santa Clara. I chose Harvard College. My freshman year at Harvard I set my sights on Stanford medical school as my next dream. I studied hard to achieve my new goal. My studious labors again came to fruition. I was accepted to the Stanford School of Medicine in 1977, graduating in 1981.

I proceeded to complete a Family Medicine specialty residency in 1984 at Kaiser Permanente-Fontana, CA. I then worked in the Family Medicine department at Kaiser Permanente-San Diego for 29 years. In July 2013, I left Kaiser and moved to a geriatrics primary care physician position in Chula Vista, CA. Along the way I raised one Berkeley and two Stanford daughters. Kelli is a licensed social worker; Pati is a Kaiser-Permanente Family Medicine physician, like me, and Silvia is a child advocate attorney.

I retired on March 1, 2019. My new venture is to mentor first generation to college, low income Mexican American/Latino high school and college premedical students in California. I wish to positively impact the educational disparities that continue to exist among us Latinos in California. I vow anew to now make a difference in my community. This is my new mission.

In the fourth grade at Hall Elementary School, a classmate boasted often of going to college. He wanted to be like his father, a nuclear physicist. As my grades were better than his, I thought, if he can go to college, so can I. Thus began my quest for college. In the sixth grade, I learned about Stanford, as my teacher raved about Stanford all year long. And I became enamored. I proceeded to set Stanford as my college goal.

I truly disliked working in the hot sun and sweating all day in the Watsonville farm fields. I picked almost every fruit and vegetable that was grown in Watsonville. My early goal was to go to college and achieve a profession with an office that had an air conditioner and a heater. My parents' house in Las Lomas lacked both amenities, as I was growing up.

At WHS I met Mike Sullivan in September 1969, my freshman year. Actually, Mike summoned me to his office the first week of school. I was scared, as I thought I was in trouble. Instead, he offered to counsel and help me get into college. He had looked up my grades at Pajaro Junior High School and my freshman schedule. I was fourteen, just a kid. Mike was my WHS assigned counselor for only one year; yet, he counseled me all four years. Mike took me under his wing. We became friends after I graduated from WHS. Since freshman year, I had told Mike of my strong desire to go to Stanford, my goal, my dream. In my junior year, Mike started talking to me about Harvard. I said, Harvard?! What for? Why would I apply, only to be rejected. I was self-convinced I would not get accepted to Harvard. Well, Mike "coerced" me to apply, and, I was shocked when I was accepted. Mike called me "Harvard material." I had no idea what he was talking about. I do, now. I will always honor and remember Mike Sullivan.

At Harvard I struggled socially. Like Alicia I arrived in Boston/Cambridge with only one suitcase. Harvard was highly wealthy in 1973. I remember freshmen year, as the limousines dropped off kids in front of our dorms. I coped by focusing on my premedical goal. I was there to get into medical school. On my first midterm examination at Harvard, I got the second highest score out of 500 freshmen students in Chemistry. This gave me tremendous confidence in my academic abilities. I then concluded that Stanford medical school was attainable. My second choice was UC San Francisco medical school. I was accepted to UCSF first; however, I had to reluctantly give up my acceptance in order to accept Stanford.

I could go on and on. I will pause, for now. I hope I have not been overly verbose. I am available to answer or address any specific questions you may have that would be of benefit to your target WHS audience. I plan to be a presence at WHS in the years to come. Thank you for reading this far. I look forward to corresponding with you.