Densho Digital Archive - Alley Watada Interview (denshovh-walley-01-0009)

<Begin Segment 9>

RP: Let's talk a little bit about your education. You started at, went to grammar school in Platteville.

AW: Yes, yes. Uh-huh. I went to... Platteville's a small community. And there I went to seven years or beginning of my eighth year is where I went there. And then I went, we moved to Fort Lupton and I graduated from Fort Lupton. And then I went on to Colorado State University and got my bachelors in horticulture. Well, I got my bachelors and masters in horticulture there. There, for masters work, I concentrated on doing research on how to maintain quality of produce. And then went into military, and then I went to University of California at Davis to get my doctoral. And I continued my research in the same area, how to do, what can be done to maintain quality and nutrition of fresh produce.

RP: That's interesting. And what did, how did you see that happening when you were growing up, in terms of the technology and of preserving produce, particularly in the produce that you were sharing?

AW: Well, I would say that when I was growing up, I'm not sure that I really gave that a thought, in terms of how it should be handled. I think that part of it is that I know in marketing, we used to put poor produce on the bottom and good produce on the top and then package it. And then my brother said that you don't do that. People aren't going to buy it tomorrow if you do that. So, that was the marketing aspect of it. But in terms of maintaining the quality and the nutrition, I really hadn't thought about that when I was growing up. I think that as a youngster it was a matter of survival and ttrying to look for something better to do. And certainly in terms of education, thanks to my mother, she said I should go on to college, mainly because I had a terrible allergy condition so that I, I would not survive on the farm. So through her encouragement I had applied to go to college and I, at that time I knew very little about college. I had no idea what opportunities existed. I think that in those days they didn't have, within the school itself, a program to educate the youngsters what's available out there. And with us not being able to communicate in English to our parents, we had no idea what we could do. Other than to talk about, talk to other people. And one of my friends talked about being a veterinarian. And my mother said, "Oh, veterinarian makes good money. You should go into veterinary science." So, that's where I started. I started as pre-vet when I was in Fort Collins. And interestingly, one of my people that I knew who was in veterinary school, showed me what they did in veterinary school. And when saw what he's doing with his arm to go into the system. I said, "Well, I don't think I want to go with animals." And that's when I switched over to horticulture. And then talking with the other professionals in the agriculture, then I realized what I could do. So this is how I selected my field.

RP: Just to go back, back to the Platteville farming community, were there other ethnic groups that farmed and lived in the Platteville area that you recall?

AW: No, I don't. I think there were very, there were a few people of Japanese ancestry in the area. But outside of... well, there were, when you say ethnic, there were Germans, there were Italians, but in terms of color, no, I don't...