Region provides new Mexican cónsul challenges, opportunities

As the crow/seagull flies, it’s almost 200 miles between Point Mugu and Paso Robles.

That is almost as far (215 miles) as from New York City to Boston, or Mexico City to Acapulco (235 miles).

In between what is almost Ventura County’s southern border at Point Mugu and San Luis Obispo’s northern frontier near Paso Robles, lies a growing Mexican national population in need of a wide variety of services.

This large territory is just one of the challenges that awaits Ana Berenice Díaz Ceballos Parada, who has begun her service as the new Mexican cónsul based out of Oxnard.

Limited funding to expand services to the region has hurt past efforts to provide for the needs of the community.

During Díaz Ceballos’ official reception held June 13 in Santa Barbara, former Oxnard City Councilmember Andres Herrera asked her to consider holding two-day weekend mobile consulate services in Santa Maria and elsewhere in region because of the difficulties of losing a day of work in agriculture and other jobs on Saturdays.

“We are very aware of the hardships they face when they are not earning wages when they have to go see the consulate,” said Díaz Ceballos, adding that the consulate will seek to get more funds from the Mexican federal government to expand mobile consulate services. “And I will personally attend as many of these events as possible.”

Herrera has a keen interest in the issue. He is one of two individuals from the 805 region serving as volunteer members of the Consejo Consultivo del Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior (CCIME), the Advisory Council to Mexico’s Institute for Mexicans Abroad (IME).

Jose Martinez, program director for Santa Barbara City College’s Plaza Comunitario, is the other member.

“They have mobile consulates up to Santa Maria and both Martinez and I recognize the need for greater services,” Herrera said. “We advise Mexicanos en el Exterior of the kind of things needed for the residents and we’ve been talking to them to increase the budget to provide greater service for the outlying areas.”

Herrera agrees that the region’s sheer size is a major challenge.

“You are talking about three counties and that is a tremendous amount of territory and people to provide consulate services to,” he said.

CCIME is independent and does not work for Mexican consulates in the United States.

“We provide consulting services so when we see shortcomings, it’s not because they don’t know how to do it. It’s because they can’t accomplish all they need to,” Herrera said. “They have to have better resources.”

Herrera and other members recently met in Puebla, Mexico with Arnulfo Valdivia Machuca, director of the Institute for Mexicans Abroad (IME).

“We spent four hours talking with Dr. Valdivia about the strengths and weaknesses,” said Herrera, who believes Valdivia will take the members’ message to increase funding to the highest levels of the Mexican government.

“It would be ideal to have the money to have permanent representatives in each” county, Herrera said. “That’s why they need to do the mobile consulates because the Mexican national population has been growing.”

While there are no hard figures on how many Mexican nationals live in the 805 region, a 2007 report by the Urban Institute (based on 2000 U.S. Census data) estimated there were 50,000 undocumented immigrants in Ventura County alone, followed by Santa Barbara County (30,000) and San Luis Obispo (5,000).

In Ventura County, the 2010 U.S. Census reported a Hispanic population of 331,567, or 40 percent of the county’s population, with an estimated 23 percent foreign-born population between 2007-11, the majority of Mexican origin.

Besides providing consulate services such as applying for and updating matricula consular identification cards, the Mexican government must find a way to improve the voting abroad program, which currently requires individuals to leave the United States and re-establish their residence in Mexico before they can vote, Herrera said.

“Those residing here find it very difficult to cast their vote,” he said. “They don’t have the time to go back to Mexico.”

People don’t have to go up to Santa Maria to see the need for services for the region’s Mexican national community.

Denis O’Leary, a board member of the Oxnard School District, lives near the Mexican Consulate office on Fifth Street near the Oxnard Airport.

“When I drive by on a typical morning I see 50 to 100 people waiting outside early in the morning,” he said. “I can’t imagine they had that many people waiting when the consulate was at the Oxnard Transportation Center.”

O’Leary, who also attended the reception for Díaz Ceballos in Santa Barbara, asked her in Spanish to work with the district to provide educational services to children of Mexican nationals in the region.

“Education is very important,” Díaz Ceballos responded to O’Leary during the reception. “The Mexican government believes education is the best chance to raise the poor. I want to work with you and learn about the best practices in education in Mexico and elsewhere.”

O’Leary said he looked forward to working with her.

“I’ve only met her that one time, but the one thing I’m already impressed with is their effort on education,” he said. “Next week the consulate will have a book giveaway and they contacted me to get the superintendent on board and to pass out messages to other educators.”

The “Donation Program 2013 Free Textbook” ceremony was scheduled to be held June 27 at Juan Lagunas Soria Elementary School in Oxnard. According to the announcement, more than 40 educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, community centers, churches, clubs and libraries were scheduled to receive 300 sets of books (55 in each set) to be used by children, teenagers and adults of various nationalities.

The collection totals 16,500 books that were donated by the Secretary of Public Education in Mexico to Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, the consulate reported.

“Most of the books are in Spanish, but some are in indigenous languages,” O’Leary said. “It shows at least they recognize the growing local population.”

The 805 region has a growing indigenous Mixteco population, primarily from Southern and Central Mexico, estimated between 5,000 and 20,000 in Ventura County alone, who speak their own language.

O’Leary said he also looks forward to working with the consulate on its Plaza Comunitario program, which has already been implemented in other school districts and colleges in the region.

The program allows Mexican nationals to take evening online classes and receive General Education Development (GED) high school equivalency certificates from Mexico. They can then take the Spanish version of the U.S. GED test.

“I think it’s great. It’s self-paced and it gets you where you want to be,” said O’Leary, who recently traveled to Mexico City with other educators to meet with government officials to discuss educational issues on both sides of the border.

“The one thing that came out of it was that the Mexican government has hundreds of millions of dollars it would like to spend in the U.S. to help Mexican citizens get a better education,” he said. “But the problem is politics. No one on this side of the border wants to accept that money because of the ‘undocumented aliens.’ Politicians don’t want to look like they are weak. That was the biggest surprise that they literally have hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on education in the U.S.”

Herrera also said he has only met the next Mexican cónsul a few times.

“I’ve had three conversations with her. She seems to be a person of high integrity, highly qualified and wants to establish more collaborations with new technology and to provide greater services to immigrants in the community.”

Díaz Ceballos replaces former Mexican Cónsul Rogelio A. Flores Mejía, who concluded his term of service on April 30. Flores Mejía took over in December 2007 from former Consul Fernando Gamboa.

Typically, the incoming Mexican president nominates his own officials to head consulate offices abroad. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), took office on Dec. 1, 2012. His nomination of Díaz Ceballos was then approved by the Mexican Senate and she officially took the position in early June. Born in Mexico City in 1968, Díaz Ceballos earned an international relations degree from the Universidad Iberoamericana, receiving an honorable mention for her thesis on human rights, which won the first competition for the best thesis on Human Rights 1995. The award was presented by National Human Rights Commission of Mexico.

She has been working with the Mexican Foreign Service since 1968, and was appointed in 2005 as coordinator of advisers of the Undersecretariat of Foreign Affairs, responsible for bilateral political relationship of Mexico with governments and organizations in Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe and Middle East.

Díaz Ceballos has held various positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, serving as deputy director general for global issues, coordinating Mexico’s foreign policy in the areas of environment, sustainable development, gender equality, human rights of indigenous peoples and persons with disabilities, combating corruption, trafficking in drugs and prevention issues.