Prof. Romero was born in northern Mexico, and emigrated to San Antonio, Texas at the age of thirteen. Six years later he was enrolled at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he majored in Finance. He also finished all the coursework required for a major in the Spanish Department. Prof. Romero was a cohort of the original group of fifteen Chicano students who founded M.E.Ch.A (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán) at the University of Pennsylvania. Returning to San Antonio, he worked as a voting rights research analyst for the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, and the Texas Rural Legal Aid, while finishing his master's at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He received his PhD from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Prof. Romero was hired by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as the first director of Latina/Latino Studies.