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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Julian Teixeira
(202) 776-1812
jteixeira@nclr.org
WASHINGTON, D.C.—NCLR (The National Council of La Raza) applauded the announcement that President Obama is nominating Maria Echaveste as the next U.S. ambassador to Mexico. Echaveste has served with distinction in government, in the private sector, with nonprofit groups and in academia. During her tenure in the Clinton administration—where she worked in the U.S. Department of Labor and later served as White House deputy chief of staff—she demonstrated a powerful commitment to advancing public interest.
“Having known and worked with Maria for many years, both during our tenure together in the Clinton White House and since then, on issues of concern to the Latino community, I know she will bring her considerable expertise, vast experience and deep understanding of U.S.-Latin American relations to one of our country’s top diplomatic posts at a critically important time in the history of U.S.-Mexico relations,” stated NCLR President and CEO Janet Murguía.
Most recently, Echaveste co-founded a successful consulting business representing nonprofit organizations and has been a lecturer and senior fellow at the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, one of the most respected legal think tanks in the country. Echaveste also has considerable foreign policy expertise, having worked on the North American Free Trade Agreement, the very first Summit of the Americas, and as special representative of the U.S. government to Bolivia in 2009. She was also a board member of the U.S.-Mexico Foundation, an American institution promoting positive reforms in Mexico.
“Maria Echaveste exemplifies the American Dream. She is the child of farmworkers who, through talent and hard work, ascended to the very highest levels of the government, business, nonprofit and educational sectors of U.S. society. For these reasons, Maria Echaveste is the ideal ambassador to Mexico and we urge the Senate to confirm her expeditiously,” concluded Murguía.
NCLR—the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States—works to improve opportunities for Hispanic Americans. For more information on NCLR, please visit www.nclr.org or follow along on Facebook and Twitter.
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