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Gaddi Vasquez: Diplomat for Desperate, Poor
By Nancy Greenleese
Rome, Italy
16 March 2009
Gaddi Vasquez chats with farmers during a 2007 visit to
Mozambique |
On a hot day, some farmers in southern Mozambique take
a break from work in their fields to chat about agriculture with a U.S.
ambassador. Gaddi Vasquez tells them he's on familiar terrain.
"My parents planted,
and my parents harvested," he says.
Vasquez is the
U.S. government's representative to the relief agencies that are
assisting these farmers. Even though he works alongside world leaders,
the 54-year-old understands these farmers' daily struggle - he lived it
with his parents.
"They could not afford daycare, so I had to sit in the fields and play
in the fields while they worked," he recalls, adding that every time he
visits projects like theirs, it takes him back to his childhood.
A childhood in poverty
Ambassador Vasquez hands out lunch provided through U.S. support
of the World Food Programme in Honduras |
Vasquez grew up in
California during the years of the guest worker program with Mexico. His
parents - and other fieldworkers - were paid by the crate or bushel… and
sometimes not at all. But that didn't prepare him for what he saw in his
travels as ambassador.
"This has been a life-changing and transforming experience for me," he
admits. "I am the son, the descendent of migrant farm workers. I have
sampled, I have lived poverty, but the poverty and suffering that I have
seen in certain parts of the world far exceeds anything that I've had to
endure."
Vasquez met 12-year-old mothers in Colombia. He witnessed the
devastation of the Bangladesh cyclone and the
recovery efforts led by United Nations agencies.
Putting world attention on global poverty
Many U.N. member states have ambassadors who work with its relief
agencies. But Vasquez is the rare ambassador who goes to where the aid
is being given.
"There is no substitute, in my view, for traveling to these countries,
holding these babies, looking into the eyes of these people, sensing
their pain and hurt and knowing that you just might be able to make a
difference."
During his three years as U.S. ambassador, Vasquez traveled to 10
countries. He wanted to put global poverty in the headlines and check up
on the relief agencies.
During a 2006 visit to Mali, Vasquez shows journalists how food
is stored at a WFP warehouse |
One of those agencies
is the
, the world's largest humanitarian organization.
The United States donates more money to it than any other country, and
Vasquez wanted to make sure it was well spent. Josette Sheeran, WFP's
executive director, says she appreciated his feedback and his
recognition of those working in the field.
"It's very rare that someone comes and says to our staff, 'Thank you.
Thank you for being separated from your family. Thank you for taking
these risks. Thank you for being there.' We would hear back from our
staff that, for many of them, it was the first time."
It's true to the nature of the former southern California police officer
who used to visit schools. But he's had to learn some lessons, too.
While heading the Orange County board of supervisors, the county went
bankrupt.
"The public trust is very, very important," Vasquez says, "and when an
official violates that or fails that, it can have serious consequences."
It did. The county treasurer pleaded guilty to six felony counts of
fraud, and Vasquez's career suffered.
Reinvigorating the Peace Corps
In 2002, Vasquez was appointed director of the
. Ron Campbell, who served in the Solomon Islands, says
alumni loudly protested and tried to block his selection.
As Peace Corps director, Vasquez talks with students at a school
in Morocco in 2002 |
"[He was] someone who
was perceived as not having the right background and skills to be the
director of the Peace Corps," he explains, then adds with a chuckle,
"Yet it's amazing how much he accomplished."
Campbell, who directed the Peace Corps Office of AIDS Relief when
Vasquez was at the helm, credits his success to his attitude.
"It wasn't about Gaddi Vasquez. It was about the Peace Corps volunteers.
It was about making a difference in the many countries that the Peace
Corps serves."
Vasquez visited 56 countries as Peace Corps director. Early on, the
Corps' first Hispanic-American director noticed that something was
amiss.
"I firmly believe that the Peace Corps is the face of America. At the
time that I arrived as director of the Peace Corps, I did not feel that
it was reflective of the face of America."
This was confirmed in Morocco. Outside a mosque, Vasquez met a man who
was surprised to hear that he was from the United States.
"And he says, 'You don't look like an American.' And I said, 'Why do you
say that?' And he said, 'Because of the color of your skin and the color
of your eyes and the color of your hair!'" Vasquez recalls. "And that
really got me to thinking that there are places in the world where
people still believe that an American is blond, blue-eyed and fair
skinned, but not Vasquez, Latino with dark hair and dark eyes."
So he began an ambitious recruiting drive, and minorities now make up 15
percent of volunteers. Vasquez created a centralized office for AIDS
relief that expanded greatly the number of people helped. Yet he says
the work only highlighted what still needs to be done.
Images of poverty and hope
Gaddi Vasquez, photographed with his father 50 years ago, was
the first member of his family to earn a college degree |
He recalls a visit
to a children's center in Haiti, where he gave a little boy a piece of
candy.
"He broke the candy into three pieces. He extracted one, ate the one.
And very meticulously wrapped the other two pieces in the plastic. And I
asked the center director, 'What is he doing?' And the director pointed
out to me that he was basically taking one-third of the candy for his
own consumption and was saving the other two because he was going to go
off and sell the other two to generate a little revenue for himself and
his family."
That image and others like it, he says, are seared on his brain to
remind him of the urgent need to erase poverty.
Another image - a black
and white photograph, decades old - is also always on display in his
office and home. "[It's] a 3-year-old boy and his father standing in
front of a small trailer that sat on a foundation of dirt with no
heating, no cooling and no running water. That 3-year-old was me."
Vasquez has moved that photo to Southern California, where he recently
became the executive director of the
Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands. Part of its mission is
promoting and studying democracy. Yet the migrant workers' son says he
plans to continue speaking publicly about the need to end world hunger
and the crushing poverty that he's seen - and lived. |
