ISBN 1-931010-04-8
200 pp. | paper only | $16.00

a memoir by Mari-Luci Jaramillo

Madame Ambassador: The Shoemaker's Daughter is the story of a life of success beyond all expectations. A child of poor immigrants dreams of a wonderful life of noble purpose and service to others and achieves it despite doubts, fears, and lack of money. She uses her experiences with poverty, discrimination, and prejudice as the basis for her life's work of solving these problems, working her way up from being the child of manual laborers to becoming a U.S. ambassador to Honduras and a celebrated civil rights advocate. Despite a remarkable career characterized by distinguished public service in both government and higher education, Jaramillo shows that she remains the shoemaker's daughter, faithful to the precepts and values of her Latino family and community. These give her strength to take on the challenge of advocacy for those who cannot speak for themselves.

Mari-Luci Jaramillo worked her way through college, eventually earning a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction in 1971. She has worked as an ESL teacher, civil rights advocate, vice president of the University of New Mexico, ambassador to Honduras, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America, and highly respected public speaker. She is retired and lives in her hometown of Las Vegas, New Mexico, where she continues to work for human rights causes.