![]() "When I listened to Robert Kennedy, I felt he wasn't talking at us, but talking to you personally," Romero said. When Robert Kennedy announced he would run for president, Romero got caught up in the excitement. Kennedy had traveled to Mexico and saw footage of Robert Kennedy visiting Mexican-American farm workers in California. Instead, Romero got a job at the Ambassador Hotel as a dishwasher and later a busboy.Īt the time, the young Romero didn't understand politics. The family lived in poor East Los Angeles and he attended Roosevelt High School the year that Chicano students started organizing walkouts to protest discrimination against Mexican-American students.īut Romero's stepfather "ruled with an iron hand," and the teen feared he'd face trouble at home if he took part. "I still have the fire burning inside of me," Romero told The Associated Press.īorn in the small town of Mazatan, Mexico, Romero moved to Baja, California until his family received permission to bring him to the United States as a 10-year-old. Romero grants few interviews but recently made himself available for the Netflix documentary "Bobby Kennedy for President," Stor圜orps and others to talk about the hope RFK inspired that remains with him 50 years later. ![]() Today, nearly 50 years after that tragic early morning, the 67-year-old Romero doesn't bear the same guilt, thanks in part to the support of RFK fans who say the former busboy was an example of the type of people Kennedy sought to help in making racial equality and civil rights a cornerstone of his life's work. Romero held a wounded Kennedy as he lay on the ground, struggling to keep the senator's bleeding head from hitting the cold floor of the Ambassador Hotel kitchen.įor almost a half-century, Romero blamed himself, wondering if he could have done more and often asked, what if Kennedy hadn't stopped for that brief moment to shake my hand? The torment ate at Romero so much he fled Los Angeles and resettled in seclusion in Wyoming. ![]() Kennedy on the night of his victory in the California presidential primary on Jwhen a gunman shot the New York senator in the head. Romero had just stopped to shake the hand of Robert F. Juan Romero was a teenage Mexican immigrant working as a hotel busboy 50 years ago when he was thrust into one of the seminal moments of the decade. ![]()
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