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From ChicagoTribune.com:

WASHINGTON — Almost 50 years ago, a first lady seized Mexico City‘s heart: the beautiful, chic, multilingual Jackie Kennedy, to whom Michelle Obama draws comparisons.

Reporters judged her 1962 trip with President John F. Kennedy “a triumph.”

It saw an estimated 1 million people line the route of their motorcade.

It saw people leap to their feet — applauding — after the first lady delivered, without notes, a short speech in Spanish.

It saw thousands bid the couple farewell, shouting “adios,” “Jackie, si,” and “come back soon.”

That’s just the kind of excitement Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, Arturo Sarukhan, expects Obama‘s visit to generate.

Click here to view photos of The Best Of Michelle Obama:

She departs Tuesday for a three-day trip to the Mexican capital, her first official solo trip abroad. She will meet children, tour an anthropology museum and dine at Los Pinos, the president’s residence.

“I think she will ‘wow’ Mexico and Mexicans,” Sarukhan, who entered the diplomatic corps in 1993, said in an interview. “I think people will be bowled over. …

“She is a very powerful example of the empowerment ofAfrican-Americans in this country, and a very powerful symbol to Latinos in this country and Mexicans in Mexico of what you can achieve in a country that is built on immigrants and is built on diversity and is built on the ability to advance because of hard work and merit.”

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