Mexican Envoy Has Been Friend to Community

There are a million stories like hers in Mexico City. Her father was a humble baker and her mother took in laundry to help pay her Catholic school tuition. At 16 she stopped going to school and went to work as a secretary, part of an army of anonymous office workers struggling to get by in the crazy Aztec capital.

Yet Marisela Quijano says she never felt the urge to improve her lot by coming north to the United States, as do so many immigrants from working-class ranks in her country.

“In Mexico, it’s like a tradition for many people to pursue the American Dream,” she says. “But I always told myself, ‘The day I go to the United States, it’ll be as a representative of my country.’ ”

In 1989, her prediction came true. Quijano had joined the Mexican foreign service and was assigned to her first international post at the consulate in Seattle. Three years later, she was transferred to Santa Ana as deputy consul.

By 1995, this soft-spoken woman with a fierce national pride and a taste for classical music became Mexico’s top consular official for Orange County.

This week, Quijano will preside over her final celebration of Fiestas Patrias, or Mexican Independence Day, as her country’s representative here. As she walks along the streets of Santa Ana in today’s holiday parade, she’ll be waving goodbye to the people she has served with dignity and diplomacy in a time of tension over immigration.

As part of normal rotation of consular personnel, Quijano said, she has been reassigned to a new post in Mexico City, headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Relations. She leaves for home at the end of the month.

During her tenure, Quijano served less as a consular bureaucrat and more as an ambassador to Orange County’s Latino community. She strived to build ties with community organizations, and it seemed as if she never missed their luncheons, banquets, parades, art receptions, health fairs, fund-raisers and, of course, Cinco de Mayo parties.

“She’s everywhere,” said Lydia Cano, board member of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, during a brief tribute to Quijano at a chamber luncheon Thursday. “We see her everywhere we go. And we’re going to miss you, Marisela.”

The consul’s consistent participation was a matter of policy.

“The consulate can no longer be managed from behind a desk,” Quijano said. “That’s not a personal decision. That’s a direct order from the ministry.”

Quijano’s reserved and respectful public presence served as a quiet counterpoint to the harsh Mexico bashing that marked the decade. Ruben Alvarez, the Hispanic chamber’s executive director, said Quijano always made sure her country was seen in a positive light.

“She exemplifies the things that are good about Mexico: hospitality, friendliness, hard-working, wanting to be involved,” he said. “That’s who she is and that’s how we are as Latinos.”

Quijano calls Mexico a country of opportunities, even for the daughter of a common laborer like her. In Mexico, people can rise above their social status through education, which is readily accessible to even the poorest Mexicans through state-run schools and universities.

After her six-year secretarial stint, Quijano went back to school to study accounting, at the urging of co-workers who noticed her facility with numbers. She enrolled in preparatoria, Mexico’s post-secondary level, attending school in a historic colonial building in the heart of the capital.

Quijano went on to study political science at the modern campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. More than 300,000 students attend the sprawling university system free of tuition, a benefit considered so essential to public education in Mexico that students went on strike there this year after university officials proposed charging fees.

The strikers wouldn’t even accept a sliding scale for those who can afford it.

I asked Quijano how she feels when critics in this country accuse Mexico of failing to educate its citizenry, forcing the burden on the United States. She just rolled her eyes and sighed.

“I believe the attitudes of many people are a result of lack of knowledge,” she said, summoning her diplomatic restraint.

Quijano has had to frequently bite her tongue on controversial matters. Like the time ex-congressman Bob Dornan showed up unexpectedly at a Cinco de Mayo reception co-sponsored by the consulate. Dornan was looking to lure back Latino voters during his failed 1996 reelection campaign, but many had not forgiven his role in fomenting anti-immigrant hysteria by blaming his earlier loss on voter fraud by Mexicans, a trumped-up charge that did a lot of damage.

Quijano was publicly polite, but couldn’t help but mutter sarcastically in Spanish between clenched teeth: “Who invited that man?”

I asked the consul if she felt personally offended by political measures like Proposition 187, the failed drive to strip the undocumented of public benefits, even schooling.

“Ofendida no, pero triste,” she said. “Not offended, but sad. Because it shows a lack of respect and appreciation for the contributions that the Mexican people have always made toward the development of this country with their labor.”

Quijano could never be said to be anti-American. She married one. She met Peter Mooneyham, a mail carrier, while stationed in Seattle. (Officially, she attached his surname to hers with a hyphen.)

She says her husband is excited about the prospect of moving to Mexico, where he’ll continue learning Spanish. “My husband is very respectful of my position and of my culture,” she said.

Women are still a minority within the Mexican foreign ministry, Quijano said. Both her predecessor and her successor in Santa Ana--Miguel Angel Isidro, currently the deputy consul in Phoenix--are men.

But things are changing for women in Mexico. The country has female ambassadors in such places as France and Austria. More importantly, Mexico’s current minister of Foreign Relations--the counterpart to U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright--is also a woman, Rosario Green Macias.

In Mexico, feminism began at home.

“The first ones to prevent us from going to school used to be our parents,” said Quijano, who aspires to an ambassadorship. “But it’s not that way anymore.”

Her own mother, Maria de la Luz, never worked outside the home. But she was the disciplinarian who made sure Marisela, an only child, did her homework. Her mother is now 78 and still lives in Mexico City. She was widowed by her husband, Aurelio, 18 days after their 50th anniversary and nine days after he turned 94.

Quijano says the gratifying part of consular work is dealing directly with people. She says she has improved services provided to Mexican citizens through her agency, offering literacy training, referrals to community organizations and free legal advice on everything from work-related injuries to custody disputes.

And if you call the consular office in Santa Ana, you won’t get one of those annoying recorded phone responses. Quijano never wanted a machine to answer the public’s calls. Sometimes, when her staff of 13 is too busy to pick up the line, she’ll answer the phone herself from her modest second-story office.

The public thirsts for that personal contact, Quijano says.

“They’re calling us from other areas because people want to hear a human voice,” she says.

Quijano was on the phone when I stopped at her office. She was settling last-minute details for the parade, concerned that walking would be too tough in heels.

But, on second thought, she decided against riding in a car. Too aloof, she thought. Too imperial. The consul would have better contact with people on the street.

Agustin Gurza’s column appears Tuesday and Saturday. Readers can reach Gurza at (714) 966-7712 or agustin.gurza@latimes.com.