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OUT OF THE FIELDS My Journey From Farmworker Boy To Pediatrician Book Excerpt from the Inspiring Story of Ramon Resa, MD: MOVING OUT:
My college application is almost complete. My recommendations are very positive. I’ve done the best I can with the financial statement, and I’m almost finished with my essay. It’s harder to write than I expected. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me, so I don’t write everything. I do describe working in agricultural labor all my life and the adversity we endured. I write about going off in the summers to work in migrant camps to pick plums and about how summers were among the happiest times in my childhood. Even though we moved around during the summers for work, I thought of it as a holiday because we slept outside under the trees, and after work all the kids would get together and play until dark. When I ask Ama to sign my application, she looks at it quizzically. “What’s this?” “My application for college. The University of California at Santa Cruz.” “What do you mean, college?” “I have a chance to get a college education for free.” “What about us?” she exclaims. “Who’s going to help take care of us if you go away? You can’t leave us! We raised you, and this is how you reward us! Abandoning us when we need you most – after we cared for you and took you in when no one else wanted you?” She starts sobbing. “I’m not leaving forever. But I need to go so I can have an opportunity for a good job.” “There are good factory jobs in town! Domingo has a good factory job right in Visalia!” I know that Domingo and his girlfriend Laura are getting married because she’s pregnant and he had to take any job he could get. “I want something more, and for that I need a college degree.” “You should be happy with high school and COS! Do you think you’re so much better than everyone else?” She doesn’t understand why I won’t settle for a factory job. I don’t know what I want to be, but it’s not going to be anything that requires physical labor. I’ll leave that all behind once I get my education. She refuses to sign the application. I have one of my girl cousins sign it so I won’t be lying if anyone asks me anything. Over the next weeks, the scorn and bitterness that Ama keeps heaping on me is almost too much to bear. Mr. Nagel, my biology teacher, notices I’m having trouble concentrating on my schoolwork. I tell him my grandmother doesn’t think I should go to college because if I leave I won’t be any help to the family. “But that’s the best way for you to make something of yourself and help them! It’s too bad – you’re smart and you’ll do well if you get to go.” Ama keeps badgering me so much that I’m afraid I may cave in, but the guys tell me not to let her get to me. They know I have the ability to be the first one in our family to go to college and escape and become somebody. Mr. Nagel finally offers me a small apartment that I can share with my buddy Eddy. He also offers me a part-time job selling Amway products. When I leave home with my meager possessions, Ama sobs and tears her hair and calls me all kinds of names. I ignore her. I’m either going to survive on my own or go down in flames of failure.  |
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