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The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project Foreign Assistance Series JOHN SANBRAILO Interviewed by: Alexander Shakow Initial interview date: June 19th, 2017 Copyright 2019 ADST This oral history transcription was made possible through support provided by U.S. Agency for International Development, under terms of Cooperative Agreement No. AID-OAA-F-16-00101. The opinions expressed herein are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Agency for International Development or the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. TABLE OF CONTENTS Early Years in San Francisco Bay Area 1943-1961 University of California at Berkeley (1961-1965) Peace Corps: Puerto Rico & Venezuela (1965-1968) Graduate School, San Francisco State University (1968-1969) AID International Development Intern (1969-1970) AID Ecuador Assignment 1970-1972 AID Nicaragua Assignment 1972-1975 Kennedy School of Government at Harvard 1975-1976 AID LAC/DR & LAC/DP 1976-1979 USAID Ecuador Mission Director 1979-1982 USAID Peru Mission Director 1983-1986 USAID Honduras Mission Director 1986-1991 USAID El Salvador Mission Director 1991-1993 USAID Ecuador Mission Director 1993-1996 Consultant to the Inter-American Development Bank 1997 1 Senior Advisor to Ecuadorian Government & World Bank 1997-1999 Executive Director, Pan American Development Foundation 1999-2017 History Matters! Attachments El Salvador Peace Accords: Lessons Learned Ecuador: Explaining an Andean Enigma Ecuador: Never a Banana Republic Ecuador and the United States: Useful Strangers or Faithful Friends? Extending the American Revolution Overseas: Foreign Aid, 1789 to 1850 Extending the American Revolution Overseas: Foreign Aid, 1850 to 1900 Extending the American Revolution Overseas: Foreign Aid, 1900 to 1960 INTERVIEW Q: We are recording this at John’s office. He’s at the Pan American Development Foundation, an affiliate of the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C. So, John, I am delighted that you are prepared to do this as part of this ADST Oral History Project. There are not nearly enough AID (United States Agency for International Development) people who have been through this process, so we welcome you into this august group. We are particularly interested in finding out about you and how you have come to this wonderful set of career accomplishments. We will get to your role as the long-standing – what was it? – 18 years as Executive Director of the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF). But we’re going to begin right at the beginning. So, tell me about when and where you were born, and how you were brought up to the extent that you can see links between what was going on in San Francisco, and what you ended up doing. That would be welcome, but we’re going to take it step by step, so we want to find out these early influences first. So, John, the floor is yours. Early Years in San Francisco Bay Area (1943 – 1961) SANBRAILO: Thank you, Alex. It’s a great honor to have you do this interview. I was born in San Francisco, California in 1943 and did not leave the state until I joined the Peace Corps in 1965. My parents were U.S.-born children of immigrants. Q: Where did your grandparents come from? 2 SANBRAILO: My grandparents on my father’s side came from Dubrovnik in Croatia. On my mother’s side, her parents emigrated from Russia. They were both part of the wave of immigrants from the 1890s and 1900s who were fleeing the ethnic conflicts in the Balkans and the persecution of the Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe. My Croatian grandfather ultimately ended up in San Francisco because of extended family connections there and because he saw the Bay Area as similar to Dubrovnik on the Adriatic coast. On my mother’s side (the Schonfeld family) I am not certain why they arrived in San Francisco, although I know that there were intermittent stops along the way, after passing through Ellis Island. Q: What part of Russia? Do you know? Was this still Czarist Russia or was it real Russia rather than what is now Lithuania? SANBRAILO: I am not really certain. As I grew up there were family references to Russia, but it may have been what you suggest. Both of my grandfathers passed away before I was born. I only knew my Croatian-born grandmother in my earliest years. Q: But how did they get to San Francisco – Getting to California must have been kind of unusual. SANBRAILO: There was a longstanding Croatian community in San Francisco, perhaps dating to the Gold Rush of 1849. Similar ones existed in Chile and Peru where I found distant relatives. I understand that my grandfather identified with Northern California. I have less information why my maternal grandparents ended up in San Francisco, but it may have been the city’s existing Jewish community, its diversity, the open attitude toward European immigrants, and the growing economy following the 1906 earthquake and reconstruction. The Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915 marked a milestone in San Francisco history and attracted people from throughout the world. Q: So, they didn’t just immediately arrive in New York and go off to California? SANBRAILO: They passed through Ellis Island. My father’s parents went directly to San Francisco. On my mother’s side, the family had spent some time in NYC and Duluth, Minnesota, and perhaps other cities, before finally arriving in San Francisco. My Croatian-born grandfather started a San Francisco restaurant with his cousin that became quite famous by the 1920s. It provided a good middle class life that allowed my father, his brothers and one sister to attend high school and graduate, which was unusual for that time. My maternal grandfather became a successful tailor. They participated in the prosperity of the 1920s, owned a home in Daly City (south of San Francisco at the end of the street car line, bordering the Pacific Ocean) and were able to ensure that their children attended elementary school and high school. My paternal grandfather was active in Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church and the Knights of Columbus. My father spoke a few phrases of Serbo-Croatian and seemed to understand it, but by my time only English was spoken. 3 Q: Were there relatives? SANBRAILO: Yes, I had uncles and aunts who lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. They always said how grateful they were to their parents for leaving Croatia or Russia for the U.S. They loved San Francisco and California and the lives that they had made for themselves, even during the Great Depression of the 1930s when they were unable to attend college, as some had wanted to do. They had to work instead. Throughout his life, my father recalled President Herbert Hoover’s political parade through Daly City in 1932 and how the public had booed Hoover because of the Depression and widespread unemployment. Q: Your parents were born out there? SANBRAILO: Yes, my father was born in San Francisco in 1911 but my mother was born in Duluth, Minnesota in 1913. My father graduated from Jefferson high school in Daly City in 1931. My mother did not finish high school and lived with her older sister after my grandmother became ill and incapacitated. Q: What did your father do? SANBRAILO: He managed a trucking company. Q: And did your mother work? SANBRAILO: She worked at the Daly City movie theater in the 1930s, in factory jobs during WWII, and subsequently part-time in a restaurant and a day care center. She loved young children. During most of her life my mother was primarily a homemaker, taking care of my sister and me. It was a middle class family of the 1940s and 1950s, living in the suburbs adjacent to San Francisco. It was as close to an idyllic childhood as anyone could wish. A traditional post-War family. My parents were products of the Great Depression, the New Deal of the 1930s and WW II, and the post-War era. They admired Franklin Roosevelt and identified with the Democratic Party—they had a picture of Roosevelt in the basement until they passed away and a large poster of John Kennedy from the 1960 Presidential campaign. Q: Did your father have to go off to the war? SANBRAILO: No, he had a national security job during WWII in what was called a strategic sector (transportation) and kept the trucks rolling. He followed the war closely and collected every edition of Life Magazine and National Geographic during the war. I later read them which kindled my interest in international affairs and history. He was always attracted to international events, and that’s probably where I get the same interest. We lived through the early Cold War, the threat of thermonuclear war and the “duck and cover” drills at school. 4 From my earliest days, I was expected to study hard and to prepare for college. I was to be the first one in the family to go to college. My parents had the work ethic of the times, saved their money so that my sister and I could live better than them, go on to college if we wished, and set high expectations. We were to be disciplined, focused and study hard. Q: Where did you live? SANBRAILO: Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, we lived in what today is the older section of Daly City, located just north of the San Francisco International Airport. My parents moved to the Westlake district in the 1960s, adjacent to Lake Merced and the Pacific coast. These were some of the earliest suburbs, extending down through San Mateo and eventually to Palo Alto.

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