A new seat at the table for a behind-the-scenes Latina power player
If confirmed, Rayes would be the fourth Latina to be appointed US ambassador by the Biden administration and would join a select group of about a dozen Latinas who have been appointed US ambassadors in American history.
Jeffrey Sánchez makes sure to always pick up Nathalie Rayes’s calls. “Do you know how many times she’s called me asking me to raise money to get a Latino elected for this or that office?” said Sánchez, a former state representative and former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee who’s currently a senior adviser at Rasky Partners. She is persistent, Sánchez said, and someone who is hard to say no to.
Rayes, who has lived in Boston for a decade, has the ear of many national and local political figures but she is not a household name. The CEO and president of Latino Victory, Rayes is a behind-thescenes political power player who’s focused on making sure Latinos are represented at every level of government.
She has the ear of a wide range of high-profile figures in politics. Joe Kennedy III told me that “Rayes is a force of nature.” In a statement, US Representative Katherine Clark, the House Democratic whip, called her “unstoppable,” someone who “understands that power is built from the bottom up.”
And now Rayes has been raised into a much more visible role. On Tuesday, President Biden nominated Rayes to serve as US ambassador to Croatia, a NATO ally and European Union member. It’s a critical post given the current state of geopolitics in Eastern Europe with the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
Disclosure: Rayes is a friend. I felt compelled to write about her nomination because she represents a new wave of Latinx power that’s figured out how to get a seat at the table. If confirmed, Rayes would be the fourth Latina to be appointed US ambassador by the Biden administration and would join a select group of about a dozen Latinas who have been appointed US ambassadors in American history.
Rayes’s nomination stands out on another meaningful level. Unlike many Biden ambassadorial picks, she is not a megadonor. The United States is practically the only democracy in the world where presidents, both Democrat and Republican, traditionally appoint deeply pocketed campaign donors for ambassadorial roles, or what is known as “bundlers,” those who donate directly or help raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the winning presidential campaign. Biden has tapped the donor-to-ambassador pipeline for about a third of his ambassadorial nominees.
Nor is the Foreign Service known for its diversity. In a late 1970s study commissioned by the then secretary of state, the service was famously described as “elitist, self-satisfied, a walled-in barony populated by smug white males.” That has barely changed. The White House did not respond to a request for data on the racial and ethnic diversity of Biden’s diplomatic appointees. As of 2020, Latinos accounted for roughly 8 percent of the Foreign Service’s workforce.
That’s why US Representative Ayanna Pressley is “thrilled” by Rayes’s nomination. “Representation matters, and our diplomatic corps are no exception,” Pressley said in a statement.
Rayes has an extensive background in public service and has served on the boards of many institutions, including the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Earlier in her career, she was deputy chief of staff for then Los Angeles mayor James K. Hahn.
Like Kennedy put it, she has always been “dedicated to lifting people up and to making sure she can navigate the upper echelons of power so that those left out of conversations” have a way in to participate in them.
For instance, Juana Matias, a former lawmaker from Lawrence and the first Latina from Massachusetts to mount a viable campaign for US Congress, said Rayes was instrumental when she ran in 2018. “She took a risk with me but she connected me to key national people and helped me fundraise,” Matias said. But even after she lost that congressional race, Matias said, Rayes did not forget about her public service. Rayes was helping recruit Latino talent for the Biden-Harris administration, Matias said. “Nathalie called me and said, ‘I want to put your name in, send me your resume,’ ” Matias said.
Fast forward to March 2022: Biden appointed Matias as New England regional administrator for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, the first Latina in that post for the region, Matias said. “Not only did she open that door for me, she also made me believe I absolutely belong there. I would not have applied for that role otherwise!”
Because Rayes’s ambassadorial nomination is pending confirmation in the US Senate, she referred me to the White House.
There was no shortage of people willing to talk about what her nomination means to the Commonwealth and to Latinos, and her eminent qualifications to be US ambassador to Croatia. “There are a few people in our state, I would argue, and in much of our country, who have done as much as Nathalie to truly engage Latinos,” former state representative and current Massachusetts Secretary of Veterans’ Services Jon Santiago said in an interview. Kennedy added, “Nathalie has an ability to make sure every person is seen, heard, and championed.”
Whether she’s creating pathways for the generation behind her to occupy decision-making posts or navigating the halls of power, Rayes’s consistent and relentless theme has been that Latinos have to step up if they want to be heard. And people like Rayes are needed in the US diplomacy world where Latino voices are sorely underrepresented. The Senate should swiftly confirm her.