Patricia Cortés Guadarrama, the new head Mexican consul in Las Vegas, “blames” her love of foreign affairs on her father. 

When she was just 6, Cortés Guadarrama's family moved from Mexico to the United States after her father was awarded a scholarship to pursue a master's degree at the University of Minnesota — something she recounts as a completely transformative experience. Although they lived on campus, her neighbors were from “places I had never heard of” — Chile, Peru, Korea. Her nanny, she recalls, was from the Solomon Islands. 

“That was like my first exposure to international affairs, in a very elementary way, but that made me think and look at the world in a different manner,” said Cortés Guadarrama, 52. 

She recalled spending her free time as an elementary student reading foreign affairs newspapers, such as Le Monde, and was consumed by a love of languages. Back in Mexico, she enrolled in an international school, surrounded by students from Italy and Switzerland. 

Cortés Guadarrama later obtained a degree in international trade from el Tecnológico de Monterrey, one of the largest universities in Mexico. 

Since then, Cortés Guadarrama has worked all over the world, posted in Mexican embassies in Spain and the Netherlands, where she carried out political, economic and multilateral work. Most recently, she served as a consul adjunct at the consulate in Salt Lake City, where she had the opportunity to work for the Hispanic community in Utah and western Wyoming, before moving her family to Las Vegas. 

Now as head consul, a post she assumed in May, Cortés Guadarrama said she’s ready to apply what she’s learned from her past jobs to serve the local community

The local Mexican Consulate, which she leads, represents Mexico's government abroad and is directed by Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mexicans account for the largest bloc of Latino immigrants in Nevada, representing nearly 40 percent of that community.

Staff at the consulate are responsible for a variety of duties, including advocating for the rights of individuals born in Mexico and coordinating Mexican passports, consular registration, voter identification for Mexico, as well as birth and marriage certificates and military identification cards. 

On top of these duties, Cortés Guadarrama said she wants to continue to build on the work of her predecessor Julián Escutia Rodríguez, who sought to improve information distribution, organized community cultural events and promoted Mexican culture in the United States. Career diplomats often work in cycles of three to four years, but it could be longer, according to the “needs of the community,” Cortés Guadarrama said. 

Already, she has a new cultural program in the works that is pending approval from the Mexican government. She has also worked on partnering with local organizations to increase financial literacy — an area of particular interest to Cortés Guadarrama — including a local credit union called Rize and Research, Education and Access for Community Health, a community-based health organization. 

One of the biggest challenges Cortés Guadarrama said that she seeks to address as consul is streamlining the appointment process so people can get one — something with which many in the community have had gripes. 

The consulate currently has about 140 appointments open per day. Although administering appointments is managed in Mexico City, Cortés Guadarrama said the consulate has been able to increase the number of appointments by about 20 percent since she began with some restructuring around the office. She also has been trying to advertise that people with special needs or those older than 65 don't need an appointment to visit the consulate. 

One of the most pernicious issues around scheduling appointments is that there are some businesses and individuals that charge for making appointments, in the guise that it will be easier to secure one, which often just ends up being a scam. People also run the risk of identity theft in giving out their personal information to these sellers, according to the consul. 

"Already it is free, right? So nobody should be paying for that. But even sometimes, they pay for it, and when they get here, there's no appointment for them,” Cortés said. 

Cortés is less certain about what role the consulate will play in working with the next presidential administration. Although the incoming Trump administration has many immigrants in the community worried about the threat of his promised mass deportation campaign, Cortés said that she can’t make any predictions yet about what will happen. She also said that she has not heard much from community members about Trump’s proposed 25 percent tariff on imported goods from Mexico and Canada. 

The consulate has, however, received many inquiries about some big political changes underway in Mexico, including whether Mexicans living in the U.S. are eligible to receive a new pension fund proposed by former Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

While the consul says she misses her home of Guadalajara, she feels incredibly grateful for the opportunity to work as a diplomat and “change people’s lives for the better.”

“I would like to lift people up,” Cortés said. “During my time here, it is important to me to serve the community, to make their lives a little easier, to make this a safe space for them so they can come and also know what resources we have for them.”