Born and raised in East Palo Alto, Antonio is also an award-winning poet, former Marshall Scholar, and current PhD candidate at Stanford University. His journey has taken him through the halls of Menlo School, to Duke University, to Rutgers, to Oxford, and back home to the Bay Area. 

He has also been consistently involved in the Menlo community, speaking about his poetry during Writer’s Week, addressing an assembly on Martin Luther King Jr. Day on the subject of his experiences as a Latino student at Menlo, contributing a curated anthology of his recommended American poems to sophomore English classes, and even speaking, in the midst of his campaign this fall, to an Upper School Modern Political Rhetoric class who were writing rhetorical analyses of his speech “Words for a Better Today.” The students’ questions ranged from inquiries about writing in both English and Spanish to issues of housing, development, gentrification, and being a part of civic change. 

Antonio is a prime example of a Menlo alumnus who is walking the talk and investing in a purpose larger than himself—including holding the School accountable for facing up to its privileges and the urgent need to better serve marginalized students; he has asked provocative questions and sparked conversational fires. 

In a December 7 video, Antonio thanked his supporters while emphasizing the grave problems that his constituents are facing. “I ran,” he said, “because I dream of an East Palo Alto that longs to do more than just survive the next crisis, but that thrives. And I know that we’re capable of that, but it’s going to take all of us.”