I was raised in Sacramento, California, and went to the University of California, Davis. I wasn’t super-focused in college (playing soccer was at the top of my list of priorities), but I had a vague interest in economics and majored in agricultural economics. My friends who were business majors ended up working for big corporations in urban centers, and that’s what I was thinking about doing, too.

As graduation approached, I figured I would spend my life working fifty weeks a year, forty hours a week. But I felt like I had never really been anywhere or done anything. That’s why I went into the Peace Corps. I wanted to go to Africa because my parents had worked in Latin America, and I wanted to do my own thing. But it couldn’t have worked out any better. I was assigned to a rural community in Honduras, where I worked on small-scale agribusiness projects with women’s cooperatives. My main project was helping a group of women market cold cream they made out of beeswax.

I came out of the Peace Corps interested in agriculture in a way that I had never been previously because I got a chance to work in a rural setting with farmers and discovered that I really liked it. It was also my opportunity to become fluent in Spanish. Being of Mexican origin, I was glad to live immersed in a Latin culture, although I recognize now how different Honduran and Mexican cultures are.

When I came back to the States, I won a full scholarship to attend Cornell University, where I earned a master’s degree in agricultural economics. I am positive that I was awarded that scholarship because of my Peace Corps service. It made me realize how much my Peace Corps experience had added to my resume. I think that, compared to somebody who has just earned his or her bachelor’s degree, you just have a lot more to offer.

Everything I’ve done professionally since the Peace Corps has built on that experience. I now work in export sales for a grape growing company. The job I have today is really based on the skills I picked up in the Peace Corps. I encourage young people to do something that’s going to broaden their perspectives. A lot of people won’t consider joining the Peace Corps because they don’t want to sacrifice two years of income, but I never had to take an entry-level job when I got back. I came in at a mid-management level. Professionally, it can do nothing but help you.
 

 
Peter Arellanes (Honduras 1987-1989) Peter, who is Mexican American, was interviewed for "Diversity in the Peace Corps" in 1999.