San Diego’s new Mexican consul general described her first days here as a “marathon.” Ambassador Alicia Kerber Palma took office Monday after being confirmed by the Mexican Senate in December.
During her first three days, she met with the consulate’s staff and members of the Mexican Foreign Service to discuss her short- and long-term plans. On Wednesday, she attended an event hosted by the San Diego Diplomacy Council at San Diego State University.
“I come with lots of enthusiasm and full of energy,” she said Thursday in her yet-to-be-decorated new office in Little Italy.
Furthering women’s rights, diversity, and inclusion are top priority — a focus she made clear in her first public statement. “All programs and services offered by (the consulate) will aim to place women at the center of decisions, promoting their independence, autonomy, and empowerment,” she said in the message Monday.
Kerber, a lawyer from Mexico’s Universidad Iberoamericana with a master’s degree and doctorate in international law from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, began her foreign service career in 1991.
Since then, she has worked on the issue of women’s rights, both in diplomacy and for immigrant women. Kerber was also part of the team that started Mexico’s Human Rights Commission in 1992.
She praised Mexico’s recent attention to women’s issues — in 2020, Mexico’s Foreign Ministry announced that Mexico would become the first Latin American country to adopt a “feminist foreign policy” to accelerate efforts toward gender equality.
Still, she acknowledged that promotion within the Foreign Ministry is not easy for women. “It’s an obstacle course for everyone,” she said “But it’s one that we women run backwards and in our heels.”
Kerber recalled that in her early days, women were asked to assist at international meetings, but mostly as hostesses, while men performed more important duties.
She said she is part of a generation that wanted to remove barriers for the women who came after. “Without knowing what the concept of sorority was, we started working with an eagerness to really support each other, but also, to push for the new generations.”
Kerber, who reached the rank of ambassador in 2022, was nominated for the post by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in April 2023.
She left her previous post as Mexican consul general in Houston in June — she was the first woman to lead that office in 100 years — and, pending confirmation in the six months that followed, began a collaboration with Rice University on a study of women in diplomacy, she said.
Among the findings in the report, which she said is nearing completion, is evidence that women continue to lag behind in the foreign service. In Mexico, 24 percent of ambassadors are women, versus nearly 31 percent in the U.S. and 46 percent in Canada, according to the preliminary report.
In 2018, during her time as Mexican consul in Kansas City, she created the first Women’s Comprehensive Care Window — Ventanilla de Atención Integral a la Mujer — to provide specialized assistance to migrant women. The program offers legal advice and information about health and education services, among other assistance.
The program later expanded to all 53 Mexican consulates in the U.S., as well as Mexican embassies around the world.
Kerber said the consulate will continue to be a voice and advocate for border issues, including pollution and border-crossing times. “There’s a lot we can do,” she said. “We have all the tools, contacts, direct communication with officials, and that’s why we want to make ourselves available to the community.”
In January, Mexico started construction of a much-needed treatment plant in San Antonio de los Buenos, just south of the San Diego-Tijuana border, which officials said will reduce sewage discharges. But there is still work to be done.
“It is certainly a situation that concerns both governments,” said Kerber, who vowed constant communication with the federal government on the issue.
She said she would also keep an eye on border crossings, both northbound and southbound, as it is one of the main issues on the binational agenda. Late last year, border commuters going into Mexico started reporting longer-than-expected delays.
Kerber highlighted the work of two of her predecessors — Ambassadors Marcela Celorio, who served from 2016 to 2019, and Carlos González Gutiérrez, who just started his new role as consul general in Los Angeles — and said she was lucky to call them friends and ask for their advice.
“This binational region between Tijuana and San Diego is a small laboratory of what should be, or is, the U.S.-Mexico relationship,” she said. “We can implement small-scale programs here that can be successful and be replicated on a bilateral level.”
Kerber will be the fourth woman to lead the Mexican Consulate in San Diego, according to the consulate.
