Amy Scanlon was once a small-town Vermont girl fascinated by a high school student’s report on his experience as an exchange student in Japan.
Now in her 23rd year in the U.S. Foreign Service, her enthusiasm for getting to know new people and cultures seems undiminished. This includes working in Guadalajara as consul general with local and state officials to manage the details of opening a sprawling new consular complex, which includes on-site parking and a garden waiting area for American and Mexican visitors—and planned lockers, copying and photography services.
The new consulate is in a more upscale location several kilometers farther toward Guadalajara’s outskirts than its current building not far from the city’s centro in Colonia Americana—which even gave the colonia its name according to word on the street. This has led some to question whether the relatively pristine Colonia Monraz can handle the hustle and bustle of visitors that surround the current facility. But Scanlon seems undaunted by such questions, saying consulate staff are “thrilled” by the new location and calling it “ideal,” while noting that “there may be restrictions on the number of people who can wait outside.”
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