Born in California on October 26, 1977, Jaime Arturo Romero, Jr. lived part of his childhood in Mexico. He is a graduate of the University of Tennessee 2007 College of Dentistry and completed his residency at Metro Health Medical Center and the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. A Major in the Tennessee Army National Guard, he was deployed to Iraq, serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. With an avid interest in aviation, he has flown helicopters in the army and completed training in the US Army Airborne and Air Assault School.
As a newly minted oral and maxillofacial surgery specialist, Jaime Arturo Romero, Jr. moved to Middle Tennessee with his wife Eva Angelina in 2011. “When I look back at my life,” he says, “I realize how blessed I am to be where I am, to have the profession I have, and to have the love of my family and friends.” Easy to talk with, Dr. Romero is very passionate about patient care. He provides patients with a caring and soothing environment to ensure their comfort.
According to his wife, Eva Angelina, “Jaime grew up in the Christian faith from a young age, and faced significant challenges that tested his beliefs. The loss of his deeply-loved grandfather and the tragic death of his youngest cousin profoundly wounded him. He strayed from his faith for a while, feeling lost and overwhelmed by his circumstances. Sometimes he blamed God.
“However, over time, Jaime realized that God had a plan for him and now understands that the struggles and challenges he faced were meant to shape him and allow him to connect with others more deeply. These experiences taught him that God has a greater purpose for his life even when it is difficult to see” (We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials for we know that they help us develop endurance—our pain has a purpose. Romans 3:3-5.
Dr. Romero reflects on the fine line between love and hate, noting that during his earlier life’s challenges, he thought he hated God. Really, he just didn’t understand God, and he never stopped loving Him. He acknowledges that “God has always been present in my life, guiding me through obstacles.” Now more than ever, Dr. Romero “feels the presence of God’s plan and believes that his faith journey has made him stronger and more compassionate.” He is thankful for knowing God and having faith. He knows that everything is “connected with something greater than himself.”
“My father was born in Santa Barbara, California, and my mother was born in Tijuana, Mexico. My grandparents were born in Mexico, and many of my uncles and aunts are also from Mexico. My paternal grandfather joined the U.S. Army, and that was how my father was born in the U.S. Even with U.S. citizenship, my father was raised in Mexico and met my mother in Tijuana. After they married, my mother got her immigration papers, and they lived in San Ysidro, California.
“No one in my family had a college degree, and graduating from high school was a rare occurrence. My mother had a sixth-grade education, and my father had taken some college courses at a local community college. Life was hard. To survive we lived in a van and showered outside and worked in fields planting pine trees for paper companies, lumber companies, and private owners. Sometimes we ate animal crackers or beans treated with lime to kill insects living in them. I stayed out of school for five years and continued to work with my family. I was old enough to understand the severity of the situation but young enough to believe in my parents. We four brothers continued to work, and in our free time my mother would have us read and do math problems to keep up with our education. It wasn’t accredited, but it was what we had. Finally, we bought a piece of land with a trailer home that to us felt like a mansion. By this time—1994—I was a 17-year-old boy with no real education but with lots of work experience and a will to survive.” God’s lessons in endurance were fully active.
Two weeks before his grandfather died, Romero promised that he would “go back to school and get a career.” In the fall of 1995, he entered a Seventh Day Adventist school called Harbert Hills Academy in Savannah, Tennessee. He graduated from high school the following spring and was accepted to Southwestern Adventist University in Keene, Texas, in the fall of 1996 before transferring back to Tennessee in 1998 to save his family money with in-state tuition. “So, I transferred to Bethel College in McKenzie, Tennessee. While at Bethel, I realized I needed more money for school because the soccer scholarship I had at the time was not enough. I did some research and found that the Army ROTC program at UT Martin would pay for school. I enrolled in the fall of 1999 and earned my college degree in the spring of 2002. Making Romero’s graduation even more meaningful was that another Romero who had intermittently pursued education—his father—graduated from college with him!
Romero entered flight school in 2002 and planned to become a helicopter pilot, but in flight school he decided to apply to dental school. In the fall of 2003, he enrolled in the University of Tennessee College of Dentistry in Memphis.
“So, I transferred to the Dental Corp sometime around 2004, and that is where I’ve been serving since. After graduating from dental school in May, 2007, I was accepted into an internship in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in Cleveland, Ohio, and was deployed to Iraq in January of 2008, returning May of the same year. I didn’t pilot helicopters in Iraq. My mission was to treat the Iraqi detainees. At that time and until it was closed, we had over 23,000 detainees in the largest prison in the world. Even though we were at a more secured post, we would periodically get indirect fire (artillery) from hostile forces around the area; fortunately, no American or coalition forces were seriously injured during my time there. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for some Iraqi civilians in the area.
“All of my brothers served for either the Army or Air Force. Three of the four have been deployed to Iraq, and we are all doing well and continuing to move forward and fight to better our lives. I guess we have come a long way from living in a van and picking food out of trash cans.
“When asked if I wish things had been different, I can honestly say that I wouldn’t change a thing about my past. It has made me who I am today—an humble person now in a position to help others—just as I was helped by many.
Dr. Romero resides in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife Eva Angelina and their five children, Briana, Jaime, Marisa, Javier and Luciano Andres. Some of his interests include spending time with his family, playing basketball, biking, soccer, enjoying the outdoors, and travel.
Fluent in Spanish, Dr. Romero enjoys reaching out in the community and helping others in need. He and his wife Eva Angelina volunteer with Hope Smiles, Interfaith Dental Clinic, American Red Cross, and many other organizations serving our community.
Sheila E. Moss: author of Living to Matter: Mothers, Singles, and the Weary and Broken; Interrupting Women: Ten Conversations with Jesus; and international publications derived from teaching Bible and Christian ethics in Africa, Ukraine, Venezuela, and England; teacher of Bible classes for 35+ years; mother of five adult children and grandmother of eleven.
