Once a farmworker, California doctor returns to the fields to treat migrant kids
Growing up, Dr. Ramon Resa didn't see any physicians in his community that looked like him.
Resa, now 65, grew up in California's Central Valley. He was abandoned as a toddler and raised by a family with 14 children. He started picking cotton at 3, and continued to work the fields through high school. It was hard work, and Resa often had to miss school; when he was there, he had to fight to be placed in college prep classes.
He persevered, and when it came time to pick a career path, he thought about how meaningful it would be to serve as a doctor in his community. Resa knew many Latino people who were misdiagnosed or ignored by local doctors, and he wanted to break that cycle. "I thought, well, what am I doing in college? I should go be a doctor," he told ABC Los Angeles on Thursday. "My people need a doctor. That was my inspiration."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Resa graduated from the University of California Irvine Medical School, and just like he planned, he returned to the Central Valley, where he has been a pediatrician for more than three decades. He treats the children of migrant workers, and also travels around the country to share his story with young people. Resa, the subject of a recent documentary film, Ramon Rising, told The Mercury News last year that he aims to be a role model for kids who face the same obstacles that once stood in his way. Catherine Garcia
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
-
Puffed rice and yoga: inside the collapsed tunnel where Indian workers await rescue
Speed Read Workers trapped in collapsed tunnel are suffering from dysentery and anxiety over their rescue
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
More than 2,000 dead following massive earthquake in Morocco
Speed Read
By Justin Klawans Published
-
Mexico's next president will almost certainly be its 1st female president
Speed Read
By Peter Weber Published
-
North Korea's Kim to visit Putin in eastern Russia to discuss arms sales for Ukraine war, U.S. says
Speed Read
By Peter Weber Published
-
Gabon's military leader sworn in following coup in latest African uprising
Speed Read
By Justin Klawans Published
-
Nobody seems surprised Wagner's Prigozhin died under suspicious circumstances
Speed Read
By Peter Weber Published
-
Western mountain climbers allegedly left Pakistani porter to die on K2
Speed Read
By Justin Klawans Published
-
'Circular saw blades' divide controversial Rio Grande buoys installed by Texas governor
Speed Read
By Peter Weber Published