Yolanda Ronquillo

My life if very full and as I look back on these almost 50 years I am amazed and grateful. My family is in good health and doing well in life. We lost our beloved Dad in 2000 at the age of 91 and yet we still enjoy my mother at 94. We are a close family and for the past 20 or so years the 14 of us try to get together every Thursday night for Family Night Dinner at the house my Dad built. I think for me, this is one of my/our greatest accomplishments, staying together and 'talking story' to live, learn and laugh together.

Looking back at the trajectory of my life since O'Dowd I can see the road I made as I walked my life is one that winds it's way around my family and community. After graduating from O'Dowd, I attended community college for a year then worked and by the age of 22 I had married and had two sons and loved being a stay at home mom. I have very sweet memories of raising my boys here in Oakland--morning trips to the zoo, art classes together at Studio One, and being actively involved in their schools. Later I began community work after being part of some political efforts. During this time I had a mentor, Jimmy Delgadillo who trained under Saul Alinsky. Jimmy encouraged me to find work within the Latino Fruitvale community at a time when I really needed someone to tell me--yes, you can. I worked and learned so much at programs like Barrio Youth, Narcotics Education League, Latin American Library, Instituto de la Raza, Latino Family Alcoholism Project, Latino AIDS Project, and Familias Unidas. I gave myself the great gift of returning to my formal education after my sons finished high school and I completed my B.A. at Antioch University in S.F., then my M.A. at Holy Names University and finally my Ph.D. at California Institute of Integral Studies. During my doctoral program I worked at CS Long Beach at the Center for Language Minority Education and Research. It was out of that work of ten years or so that I was instrumental in establishing six community learning technology centers on four islands, Oahu, Maui, Kauia and Hawaii.

My brother's boy Rafi Ronquillo is at O'Dowd now and I love telling him stories of the "old days". Like getting caught in freshman Latin class with drawings I had made of my teachers (nuns and priests he doesn't have) to send to my cousin in the army in Korea and spending time in detention for it. And my great affection for the little Spanish nun Sister Montserrat and how she would laugh behind her hand. Or raining mornings smelling of wet wool from our uniforms. Great fun packed into the bus to and from school. Fr. Keane the Lean and intense conversations about church reform.