Tal vez porque yo era presidente de mi escuela secundaria, recibí una beca para el liderazgo de la Fundación Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to attend Amherst College, a place I had never seen in faraway New England. Perhaps because I was president of my high school, I received a scholarship for leadership from the Alfred P. Mis padres eran profesores de la universidad, mi padre enseñaba en humanidades, incluyendo América y un curso sobre la literatura mundial, en lo que se convirtió en San Joaquín Delta College (la biblioteca que lleva su nombre), mi madre era una trabajadora social que enseñaba en el Departamento de Sociología, lo que hoy es la Universidad del Pacífico.
My parents were college professors, my father taught in the humanities-including Latin and a course on world literature-at what became San Joaquin Delta Community College (the library there is named after him) my mother was a social worker who taught in the sociology department of what is now the University of the Pacific. Yo nací en Stockton, California, el 7 de marzo de 1946, la punta de la líder de la ola de babyboomers de la posguerra (que debe haber sido concebido a la vuelta de la hora del día VE, al final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial en Europa, 06 de junio 1945). I was born in Stockton, California, on March 7, 1946, the leading tip of the tidal wave of post-war baby boomers (I must have been conceived just around the time of VE day, the end of World War II in Europe, June 6, 1945).