Charting a unique path from the ‘Salad Bowl of America’ to UC Berkeley 從「美國沙拉碗」到加州大學柏克萊分校，開闢一條獨特的道路

转载自：https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/09/03/charting-a-unique-path-from-the-salad-bowl-of-america-to-uc-berkeley/

作者：Maya L. Kapoor

In this first-person narrative, incoming first-year student Israel Sanchez reflects on selling his first patent at 17, his excitement about embracing everything that Berkeley has to offer, and working to make a difference in his agricultural community back home.
在這篇第一人稱敘述中，即將入學的大一新生以色列·桑切斯回顧了他在 17 歲時賣出第一項專利的經歷，他對擁抱伯克利所能提供的一切感到興奮，並努力為家鄉的農業社區做出貢獻。

I come from a rural California town called King City. It’s on the Central Coast, in an area commonly referred to as the “Salad Bowl of America.” That is where most of our lettuce comes from.
我來自加州一個名叫金城（King City）的鄉村小鎮。它位於加州中部海岸，那裡通常被稱為“美國沙拉碗”。我們這裡大部分的生菜都產自那裡。

I started as a general laborer on a small family farm when I was 12. There’s seasons where there are night shifts, such as grape harvesting for wine. During nighttime you work, and then during the day you go to school. That makes getting an education challenging. It is really a cycle where we stick to one thing and we’re really scared to try new things, like something as big as going to college. There’s always that idea that you won’t make it, because not many do, and you’re just going to go into debt. So I was settled on just continuing my family’s agricultural trade.
我12歲就開始在自家的小農場當雜工。有些季節需要上夜班，例如採摘釀酒的葡萄。晚上工作，白天上學。這樣一來，接受教育就變得很困難。我們總是固守一成不變，不敢嘗試新事物，例如上大學這種大事。總覺得你肯定不行，因為成功的人不多，而且只會背負債務。所以，我最後還是決定繼承家業，繼續從事農業。

I’ve always been decent at school, but I wasn’t really confident in my own skills until I got exposed to college materials that I could quickly grasp. They were mostly from worn out textbooks that were chucked out from the community college, 10-year-old books that were in the recycling. It was like, “You know what? This is interesting, and it’s coming easy to me. Maybe college isn’t that bad.”
我學業成績一直不錯，但直到接觸到一些我能很快掌握的大學教材，我才真正對自己的能力充滿信心。這些教材大多是社區大學丟掉的破舊教科書，都是些十年前就被丟進回收站的舊書。當時我就想：“你知道嗎？這很有意思，而且我學起來也很容易。也許大學也沒那麼糟。”

The real responsibility on the farm kicked in when I became the assistant foreman when I was 14, then a foreman when I was 16. Typically, 24 is the average age for an assistant foreman, and then maybe mid-30s is foreman age. That is where you start managing people — maybe one crew of 25 people, up to three crews of 80 to 90 in total. 
我14歲當助理工頭，16歲升任工頭，農場裡真正的責任才開始顯現。通常來說，助理工頭的平均年齡是24歲，工頭大概在30歲中期。到了這個年紀，你就開始管理人了──可能管理一個25人的小組，也可能管理三個總共80到90人的小組。

I soon realized that in fast-paced environments, there’s always quotas, there’s deadlines, and you begin to get upset about your conditions of work. I think that is very relatable across any industry — you have to find any means to boost productivity. 
我很快就意識到，在快節奏的工作環境中，總是有績效指標，總是有截止日期，你會開始對自己的工作條件感到不滿。我認為這在任何行業都很常見——你必須想辦法提高生產力。

I wanted to pivot to being a mechanic. Where I come from, even just being a teacher or mechanic is a pretty big deal. So I told my management, “I’m willing to work for free. I want to learn how to fix tractors and stuff.” 
我想轉行當機械師。在我老家，就算只是當老師或機械師都是件了不起的事。所以我跟我的領導說：“我願意免費工作。我想學習如何修理拖拉機之類的東西。”

That is when I began tinkering with the transplant machine that I was working with. On the farms we would mainly focus on lettuce, cabbage and broccoli, plants that could be grown in a nursery for about a week or two, which would then be transported to the field where they would be transplanted. We would use carousel transplant machines: Workers feed each individual seedling into a rotating device, which places them in a hole in the ground. It typically requires around 25 people, sometimes 30, to get those plants in the ground, depending on how big the machine is. So it was pretty labor intensive and it was slow. We could do about an acre an hour depending on the soil conditions. 
那時我開始擺弄我當時用的移植機。在農場裡，我們主要種植生菜、高麗菜和西蘭花，這些植物可以在苗圃裡培育一到兩週，然後運到田裡移植。我們用的是旋轉式移植機：工人把每棵幼苗放進一個旋轉裝置裡，裝置會把它們放到地裡的洞裡。通常需要大約25個人，有時甚至30個人才能把這些幼苗移植到地裡，具體人數取決於機器的大小。所以這項工作非常耗費人力，而且速度很慢。根據土壤條件的不同，我們每小時大約可以移植一英畝。

There are alternatives like automatic machines, but they are pretty expensive and break frequently. My bosses had one and that was only for testing. I said, “What if I could combine both of them and make the carousel better? What if I could just come to the farm one day, during a weekend, work on it, fix some things that have been bothering me?” It’s kind of like a hair sticking out on your head, and you’re like, “Well, what if I just grab the scissors and cut it off?”
當然也有其他選擇，例如自動機器，但它們價格昂貴且經常出故障。我的老闆有一台，但那隻是用來測試的。我說：“如果我能把它們結合起來，改進旋轉木馬呢？如果我能抽出一個週末，來農場搗鼓一下，解決一些一直困擾我的問題呢？” 這就像你頭上豎起了一根頭髮，你會想：“要不我直接拿剪刀把它剪掉？”

The number one change was I made a machine that will automatically clean itself. The reason why machinery would break down was because it would clog. That would require people to stop the crew and clean out the machine, which would delay us by about half an hour.
最重要的改進是我製造了一台可以自動清潔的機器。以前機器故障的原因是堵塞。堵塞需要人工停工清理機器，這會耽誤我們大約半小時。

The problem was the heat. During the summers, temperatures would reach 100, 105 degrees. Workers would clock in at two in the morning to beat the heat, and temperatures would rise fast — I’m talking from two in the morning to three in the morning, the temperature difference was eight degrees. So every minute counted. When we were delayed by half an hour, we would extend the time people would clock out, and plants would dry up. So that was a big challenge.
問題出在高溫。夏天，氣溫會飆升到華氏100度、105度。為了避開酷暑，工人們凌晨兩點就得打卡上班，而氣溫上升得很快——我說的是凌晨兩點到三點之間，溫差高達華氏8度。所以每一分鐘都至關重要。如果延誤半小時，我們就得延長工人的下班時間，這樣植物就會乾枯。所以，這確實是個巨大的挑戰。

With my changes, we were also able to cut down workers all the way to only two people — the tractor driver and the machine operator. We sliced down labor costs. We reduced the need for hands.
透過我的改革，我們成功地將工人數量減少到只有兩個人——拖拉機司機和機器操作員。我們大幅降低了勞動成本，減少了對人手的需求。

My employers pulled me in and asked me how I did it. And more than anything, my employer said, “You have to go to school. This isn’t something that you just do for one morning. This industry, this job, isn’t for you. Go out and seek better.” 
我的雇主把我叫到一邊，問我怎麼做到的。更重要的是，他們說：“你必須去上學。這不是你只幹一個上午就能完成的。這個行業，這份工作，不適合你。出去尋找更好的機會吧。”

That was the first time I ever heard those words, and I truly felt like that was my actual point where I could take flight. And Berkeley was the northern star.
那是我第一次聽到這些話，我真切地感受到，那一刻我彷彿找到了展翅高飛的起點。而伯克利，就是我的北極星。

Something I’m excited about at Berkeley is trying out everything that I did not have access to where I come from, every resource that I’ve got at my disposal — trying to make the best of what Berkeley is and uphold its values. 
在伯克利，我感到興奮的一點是，我可以嘗試所有我在家鄉無法接觸到的東西，利用我所能獲得的每一項資源——努力充分利用伯克利的一切，並秉持它的價值觀。

When I got introduced to research opportunities, I said, well, that’s interesting, I could do that! And then I got interested in clubs, and then there is the startup culture here in the Bay Area — that’s my niche! And then the interesting classes that I heard about — what if I could take a million different classes?
當我接觸到研究機會時，我想，嗯，這很有意思，我可以做！然後我對社團活動產生了興趣，接著又看到了灣區的創業文化──這正是我擅長的領域！之後我又聽說了一些有趣的課程──如果我可以選修一百萬門不同的課程該有多好啊？

I may start with engineering, to try to find solutions to better our labor practices. But I know I want to expand to something humanitarian, like public health.
我可能會先從工程學入手，嘗試尋找改善勞動實踐的解決方案。但我知道我最終想拓展到人道領域，例如公共衛生。

When you take the position of an actual farm worker, you realize that it’s no different than it was 100, 200 years ago. There’s people getting sick. There are people being born with birth deficiencies. And you see the pesticide applications and labor practices, and you realize — I was in their shoes, too, and this isn’t fair. I know there’s a 12-year-old kid somewhere out there that’s doing the exact same thing that I was doing years ago. And I know that I have the potential to change the trajectory of that kid.
當你真正體驗過農場工人的生活，你會發現，這和一百年前、兩百年前並無二致。有人生病，有人出生時就患有先天缺陷。當你親眼目睹農藥的使用和勞動方式，你會意識到──我也曾經身處他們的境地，這太不公平了。我知道，在某個地方，有一個十二歲的孩子正在做著和我多年前一模一樣的事。我知道，我有能力改變這個孩子的命運。

I no longer own the rights to the machine. To paint the picture, you’re 17 and you’re sitting in a room with a lot of people in suits. When you’re used to overalls and mud and stuff, it’s pretty overwhelming. They asked, do you want to patent it, do you want to sell it? I wasn’t ambitious enough to say I wanted to own it.
我已經不再擁有那台機器的所有權了。舉個例子，你十七歲的時候，坐在房間裡，周圍都是穿著西裝的人。當你習慣了穿著工裝褲、全身泥濘的時候，這種感覺真的讓人不知所措。他們問我，你想申請專利嗎？你想把它賣掉嗎？我當時沒那麼大的野心，沒說我想擁有它。

One of the things from my background in agriculture that I truly pride myself on is the ability to quickly adapt. I think that is a skill that really not many people have. It’s something that really helps — and it’s what makes Berkeley Berkeley. Everybody’s scared to do things, but they do them regardless, because there is an optimistic view in trying new things. 
我在農業領域的背景讓我引以為傲的一點就是我極強的適應力。我認為這種能力並不常見。它真的很有幫助——也正是這種能力造就了柏克萊的獨特之處。每個人都害怕嘗試新事物，但他們仍然勇往直前，因為嘗試新事物本身就蘊含著樂觀的態度。

The world isn’t perfect, and I understood that from a very early age. But when I got inspired to do something for the greater society, I said, what better place than Berkeley?
世界並不完美，我很小的時候就明白這一點。但當我萌生了為社會做些貢獻的想法時，我想，還有什麼地方比柏克萊更適合呢？