Early Life
Toledo was born into an impoverished family of indigenous campesinos (peasants) of Quechua heritage. He was the eighth oldest of sixteen brothers and sisters, seven of whom died in childhood. He was born in the village of Ferrer, Bolognesi, but registered in the nearby town of Cabana, Pallasca Province, Ancash Department.
When Toledo was six years old, he and his family moved to the fishing town of Chimbote, a five-hour drive north of Lima. Toledo's father, a mason, claimed a plot of dusty land and built a home on it. The town had no electricity or running water, dirt streets, and open sewers.
As a child he worked shining shoes and selling newspapers and lottery tickets. When, at age 11, he finished grade school, his father expected him to leave school and get a job to support the family. With his teacher's encouragement, Toledo was able to continue his schooling by working nights and weekends, becoming the first person in his family to attend high school. Toledo eventually found employment as a news correspondent for La Prensa in Chimbote, where he interviewed several high-ranking politicians.
Toledo's prospects improved when two Peace Corps volunteers, Joel Meister and Nancy Deeds, arrived in Chimbote looking for lodging and arrived at his family's door. The two Americans were drawn to Toledo by his "industriousness and charm," and his long conversations with them during the year that followed introduced Toledo to a world outside his small fishing village and inspired him to apply for a local civic group's scholarship to study in the United States. He was chosen to receive a one-year grant, and while in the United States, Deeds and Meister helped him get into the University of San Francisco's special program for non-English speakers.
Toledo completed the BA program in economics and business administration at USF by obtaining a partial soccer scholarship and working part-time pumping gas. He later attended Stanford University, earning a master's in Economics and the Economics of Human Resources, he then earned a PhD in the Economics of Human Resources in 1993 at the Stanford University School of Education.
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