Press Contact: Jesse@toldtheycantfilm.com
Watch the 5 minute story about the making of his mural | interviews with: Ramon Resa, MD – mural subject, Omar Carrera – CEO Canal Alliance, Guillermo Kelly – Mural Artist, Tracy Eastman – Mural Artist, Rich Storek – Architect, Denise Toson and Debora Franco – Mosaic Mural Artists
Mural Depicts His Journey – Migrant Child Farm Laborer to Pediatrician
Canal Alliance in San Rafael, California, a nonprofit champion of refugees and immigrants, joined with Marin MOCA who commissioned and recruited mural artists from Italy and the San Francisco Bay Area. They created the vibrant mural which is installed in the entry stairway of the Canal Alliance education building. As a result, every student, teacher, parent and visitor who enters will walk next to this artistic portrayal of human potential and be inspired by Dr. Resa’s journey from migrant child farm laborer to pediatrician. In addition, the mural will all to dare dream of a better life through education.
Dr. Ramon Resa | Featured in the UC Santa Cruz Magazine
But talk to those who know the man who, at the age of 3, was helping pick cotton, and they’ll tell you that despite poverty, racism, and self-doubt, Resa had a kind of stubborn strength that made him never forget his vow to pull himself out of the fields and to give his own children a better life.
Dr. Resa Keynotes 2019 Cesar Chavez Legacy Awards Gala
Central Valley pediatrician, and subject of the upcoming documentary entitled RAMON RISING, Ramon Resa, MD had the honor of giving the keynote address at the 2019 Cesar Chavez Legacy Awards Gala because his story epitomizes the legacy of Cesar Chavez. Ramon’s journey from abandoned migrant farmworker boy to pediatrician embodies the reality that ordinary people can do truly extraordinary things. Multiple news outlets including ABC were on hand to cover Dr. Resa’s speech and to interview him about his incredible life story.
With news coverage comes greater awareness. People are learning about Ramon’s seemingly insurmountable challenges and the RAMON RISING documentary being made about his life. And they are donating to help get the documentary made!
TV coverage in Los Angeles on ABC7’s 11pm broadcast
Dr. Resa Speaking Event | Featured in The Mercury News
GILROY — Dr. Ramon Resa’s earliest childhood memories aren’t of story time, bedtime cuddles or playgrounds. They’re of loneliness, a grumbling, hungry belly, nights in shacks and endless bus rides to agricultural fields across the Central Valley, where he picked crops since the age of 3.
“My whole life I just remember one field after another,” he said. “Grape fields, oranges… just being totally isolated and alone, even though I had tons of family members.” click to read the article
Dr. Resa | Featured in Rotary Magazine
At three years old, an age when most toddlers are being assessed on how high they can count or how well they can recite their ABCs, Ramon Resa faced a different standard of measurement: how much cotton he could pile up in the farm fields of central California.
But Resa persevered. Today, to visit him at work, you’ll walk through a door labeled Dr. Ramon Resa. A Rotarian and a pediatrician in Porterville, Calif., he spends his days in an office not far from the tiny box of a house where he grew up among 14 relatives.
Revealing his childhood
At the end of 1990, a freeze devastated the Central Valley citrus industry and caused nearly $1 billion in damage. Rotarians, Resa says, understood what the disaster meant to growers, who were their fellow community leaders. But Resa also understood what the freeze meant for the farmworkers – at least 100,000 lost their jobs – and for their families. He knew that his Rotary club could help.
But first, he would need to tell them his story.
“So at the podium, I told my story of going without food, relying on donations, and going to bed hungry,” he says. “I was ashamed of the way I grew up. I didn’t tell Rotary about it until I wanted to help get the farmworkers food.”
His fellow Rotarians responded immediately. Contributions poured in to help the farmworker families get by. Ken Boyd, then governor of District 5230, who was at that meeting, had had no idea about the childhood his friend had endured. He spread the word to all 44 clubs in his district at that time.
Today, Resa tells his story all over the country – to teenagers and Rotary members, to teachers and migrant worker advocates, at the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards and at medical schools. He wrote a memoir, and a documentary film about his life is being produced.
Press Contact:
Jesse@toldtheycantfilm.com
