Beyond Borders: A Conversation With US Ambassador To Panama Mari Carmen Aponte
From Santurce, to Williamsburg, to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, to San Salvador, to Panama City, Ambassador Mari Carmen Aponte has had an avid career in diplomacy, law and education.
“It is wonderful news that Ambassador Aponte has been nominated to fill this critical role in United States foreign relations,” said President Katherine Rowe in October 2021, following the announcement of her appointment to the ambassadorship. “Her vast experience as a dedicated public servant and international diplomat has brought such value and perspective to the work and discussions of the Board of Visitors, including her role as chair of the Committee on the Student Experience. William & Mary warmly congratulates Ambassador Aponte on this nomination.”
Rector Charles E. Poston J.D. ʼ74, P ʼ02, ʼ06, who was appointed to the board at the same time as Aponte, reflected on her tenure.
“Ambassador Aponte was an engaged, dedicated, and enthusiastic member of the board of Visitors. As chair of the Committee on Student Experience, she demonstrated her keen interest in the education, welfare, and life of William & Mary students,” Poston wrote in an email to Flat Hat Magazine. “She came to the board with an understanding of complex issues and a willingness to work collegially to find solutions. While we welcomed her appointment as United States Ambassador to Panama, we also regretted that her appointment required her to leave the board of visitors.”
Former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam HON ’18 appointed Aponte to the board in 2019. A year after stepping down from the board last year to take on her post in Panama, Aponte still misses the university and her colleagues.
“I enjoyed my time with the board tremendously,” Aponte said. “I learned an awful lot about the students, about the commitment of the administration, the commitment of the professors, and the challenges that face, well, just about every university in the United States these days.”
Aponte, who called herself an admirer of Rowe, Provost Peggy Agouris, and the administration, also cited students as her source of encouragement.
“I was, however, encouraged by students, their willingness to take risks, and by their willingness to think outside the box, and to be concerned about improving their critical thinking and critical analysis, “I was always impressed by that, so I learned a lot from the young people.”
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She said students at the university use their talents for purposes that are bigger than and outside of themselves, something that she says she still tells Panamanian youths about as an example to aspire to.
“I miss the board meetings. I miss learning about the challenges of education.The great equalizer in the U.S. is really education. The great equalizer, bar none, is how we prepare ourselves for the future,” Aponte added. “And of course, when I joined the William & Mary board of visitors, there was always that reminder of continued learning, which I have forgotten sometimes in my life. I was so busy working on getting ahead. But it's also about learning. It's about giving, but it's also about learning.”
But it hasn’t always been easy for this former student.
“For the grace of God and affirmative action, I went to law school. At a time when there were no names like mine in law school students, there were no accents like mine. I am forever grateful,” Aponte said. Before law school, she was a teacher in the New Jersey public school system, teaching in the city of Camden. “I left teaching to go to law school full-time and it was the absolute best decision because it absolutely changed the course of my life.”
Aponte, who served as the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs under President Barack Obama, said going to law school gave her the resources to better serve her community.
“I became a lawyer, but that made me a better advocate of my community in Philadelphia, where I lived and worked and then became a White House fellow. I think it’s just one thing led to another. But law school is a great equalizer,” Aponte said. “I always felt that it put me on an equal footing with others, that I had the law degree, that I had passed the bar, that I had met the standards just like everybody, while I may have had an opportunity being accepted into law school.”
As she looks back, Aponte said she has traveled far, advocating for her communities through various public service efforts.
“I was measured by the same standards that everybody else was measured,” Aponte said. “And I am grateful that those were the standards I was challenged to meet, and was very proud to meet.”
The first female Puerto Rican ambassador, she served as ambassador to El Salvador twice under the Obama administration. Following her nomination by President Joe Biden to her current post, she has been heading the U.S. Embassy in Panama since Nov. 2022.
After graduating from the Temple University’s Beasley School of Law in 1979, she became a White House fellow under the Jimmy Carter administration in 1979, where she served as special assistant to the U.S. Housing and Urban Secretary Moon Landrieu. In 1984, Aponte was elected the first woman president of the Hispanic National Bar Association.
She has also served on the District of Columbia Judicial Nomination Commission, the American Bar Association’s Commission on Opportunities for Minorities in the Profession, the board of directors for the National Council of La Raza, and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. She is also a member of foreign policy think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations.
In 2001, Puerto Rico Governor Sila Calderón appointed her to be executive director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration. She would lead the agency until 2004.
Her experience doesn’t stop there. An advocate for women and the Latino community, Aponte also served on the Latino Advisory Council for the Smithsonian National Museum of Washington, D.C.
“I work with Raul Yzaguirre on the report of Willful Neglect, which I still would like to see changed,” Aponte said, citing a report she completed with former Ambassador to the Dominican Republic Raul Yzaguirre, which recommends measures that would make the Smithsonian Institution more inclusive. “The course of the Smithsonian Institution is pivotal. We did a lot of research. We talked to a lot of people. When we started to dig into it, the only Hispanics at the Smithsonian were guards and people in the cleaning crews. We have come a long, long way. We have now an assistant secretary. We have a general counsel. We are everywhere.”
Aponte, along with other members of the Smithsonian Institution Task Force on Latino Issues, completed the report in 1994. Aponte also cited it during a hearing of a subcommittee of the House Natural Resources committee. One of the recommendations is the creation of a standalone Smithsonian National American Latino Museum.
Aponte further emphasized the benefits of diversity.
“But not only Hispanics. I think that the beauty of opening those doors is it opens them wide for everybody. It's more than Hispanics. It's about diversity and how rich diversity makes us all and how it contributes even in our daily lives. And as we look at other countries and what they are going through,” Aponte said. “A lot of them are, well, some of them are similar. They are all similar backgrounds, similar language, and they can't get along.”
Speaking as a guest lecturer at an event hosted by the First Generation and Low Income Student Organization and the Latin American Student Union at W&M in 2022, several students found her story special.
“She talked about her experiences growing up as a minority student and how she, as a Hispanic individual, came into law school through affirmative action,” FGLI co-president Orley Estrada ’23 recounted. “And she said that when she grew up, she had a stigma — she thought she wasn’t worthwhile as an individual going to these prestigious schools that she went to. And all of the students in our organization identified with her because they’re the first people in their family to go to school — specifically college.”
Aponte highlighted that the university values diversity.
“And here in the states, how wonderful that, in the diversity in the diverse skin colors, in the diversity of all the diverse accents, the diverse pronunciations and all the names, there is learning and we are no longer surprised,” Aponte said. “We are no longer scared of people who may be different from us. They are also Americans. And that is a very fundamental truth that I think we live with, we recognize, and that we certainly emphasize at William & Mary.
She laid out her philosophy in dealing with obstacles that stem from her personal background.
“I think that one of the greatest insights I have had was to recognize that rejection because people could not understand my accent or could not pronounce my name. I had a component of not understanding or not having insight,” Aponte added. “And that I could constructively ‒ instead of with anger ‒ constructively talk about my background and talk about my [values], which were, of course, usually the same as the people I was talking to. I just had a different name and I have a different way of saying some of the words. But those are superficial.”
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As ambassador, she has been leading various projects for the embassy. Education, immigration, economic development, improving the judicial system, the promotion of democracy in the region, trade, and cultural exchange are just some of the issues on which she has been focusing.
“We work on a whole broad gamut of projects. Economic development is an important one, as is education. We are very active in the educational space in Panama,” Aponte said. “We are always encouraging and trying to recruit young people to come and study in the U.S. and to try to help them find the resources or sometimes even help providing the resources for young people to spend time in the U.S.”
Working to help vulnerable communities in Panama, Aponte, who holds a master’s degree in theater from Villanova University, also hopes to rebuild some of the cultural scenes in the country.
“We find that that is one of our best, absolutely best investments. Our work with the vulnerable communities here with the Afro descendants is very important for us, especially in cities like Colón, which is the second largest city in Panama,” Aponte added. “Colón is the center of trade and it used to be a city full of theaters and cultural heritage. It has downgraded. We are working with some leaders in that city to bring it back, where we are opening an American center in Colón.”
Aponte also highlighted the importance of the Panama Canal, which used to be owned by the United States but was given Panamanian control in 1999 after President Jimmy Carter signed the Torrijos–Carter Treaties in 1979, following negotiations.
“Panama is a great ally of the United States. The canal is very important to trade and commerce in the U.S. 72% of all the ships that go through that canal,” Aponte emphasized. “It is by far a dominant percentage of the trade that goes through the canal, so the security of that canal is very important to it. We are bound to it by treaties of neutrality and protection of which we are very proud.”
The ambassador praised the Panamanian government for the canal’s administration.
“The Panamanians are doing a fabulous job of administering that canal, even in challenging times, such as climate change and lack of water,” Aponte said. “And water is Panama’s greatest resource ‒ its rain, its rainforest, the canal. It all has to do with water, which is also one of the priorities of William & Mary, as I recall from my years on the board of visitors.”
Looking ahead, Aponte sees a bright future for the university.
“William & Mary, is a very special place. It is a place full of acceptance. It's a place where the priority is critical thinking and the skills that will make students successful no matter where they end up and what career they choose,” Aponte said. “I think all of those tools are present. I think you all are very, very fortunate and I am rooting for all of you, all the way from Panama.”
Aponte points to the administration’s efforts to make the university a more diverse community as an ongoing process. As of 2023, the university’s student body is still overwhelmingly white.
“Education is like everything. You have to work at it. You have to work at perfecting. And trying to attract a broader and diverse student body takes work and commitment. It's a process and you do it gradually,” Aponte said. “I think the administration at William & Mary is doing an outstanding job and will absolutely make the university a better place. And they will work at it every day.”
She said she would love to see more students from the university working in foreign relations.
“I would love to see many students from William & Mary apply to the Foreign Service,” Aponte said. “I would love to see more women and a lot of diversity. I think one strength that Foreign Service has is its diversity. I think that when my Spanish, for example, has been an asset ‒ the ability of my being able to speak Spanish and to know the culture ‒ has been an asset here both in Panama and in El Salvador. It has led me to be more successful in transmitting the messages in ways that people can understand.”
Aponte said the Department of State, under the leadership of U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, understands the importance of diversity.
“This is exactly my dream: that our foreign service be so diverse that we have diplomats that sound and look like the people where they are posted. That is quite an asset and something that I think this Department of State, especially under Secretary Blinken, fully understands,” Aponte said.
Member of the William & Mary’s board of visitors and former U.S. public delegate to the United Nations S. Douglas Bunch ʼ02, J.D. ʼ06, served alongside Aponte, and considers her a close friend.
“Ambassador Aponte is a dear friend. She was a cherished colleague on William & Mary’s board, and a fellow diplomat of the highest caliber at the Department of State,” Bunch wrote in an email to Flat Hat Magazine. “She exemplifies the degree of selfless, engaged public service — and a tireless commitment to cultivating human relationships — that we all aspire to hold.”
Aponte has one piece of advice for students who might find themselves in a similar situation as her growing up:
“Don't ever give up, ever, ever, even for one moment, think of giving up. Always regroup. Take a deep breath and come at it in another direction,” Aponte said. “You know, all the students at William & Mary are so intelligent. They are so lucky to be in an atmosphere of being accepted. That’s an opportunity for all of you, and for me, and for all of us, to make sure that we don't give up, and that we keep fighting for all the things we think are important. Things like the values that we live by ‒ education, democracy, you know, the fact that if we disagree it doesn't make us [enemies]. It gives us something to talk about. It gives us something constructive to talk about. And if you view it that way, it's easier not to give up.”
Community has always been important to her, even when she felt like throwing in the towel.
“I was fortunate that I am blessed to have people around me who would always encourage me.”