Aponte, Mari Carmen, 1946-

Mari Carmen Aponte is a Washington DC-based attorney who was named acting Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs on May 5, 2016, serving until January 20, 2017. Before this post, she served as U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, a position she first held from August 2010 until December 2011 and then from June 14, 2012, until December 2015.

Born in 1946 and raised in the Santurce district of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Aponte earned a B.A. in Political Science at Rosemont College in 1968, an M.A. in Theater at Villanova University in 1970, and a J.D. at Temple University in 1975. In the years between her M.A. and J.D., Aponte taught school in a predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood in Camden, New Jersey, where, in 1972, students seized control of their school as part of a protest demanding more relevant educational opportunities. Sparked by the student protesters and inspired by Latino lawyer-activist Nelson Diaz, who eventually became a state judge and general counsel at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Aponte decided to go to law school.

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