Helen Rodríguez Trías (1929-2001) was the first Latina director of the American Public Health Association. She was a leading advocate in the women’s health movement who pushed institutions to better understand the social and economic determinants of health.
Helen Rodríguez Trías (1929-2001) was the first Latina director of the American Public Health Association. She was a leading advocate in the women’s health movement who pushed institutions to better understand the social and economic determinants of health.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan. And this is Womanica.
Today, we’re talking about the first Latina director of the American Public Health Association. She was a leading advocate in the women’s health movement who pushed institutions to better understand the social and economic determinants of health. Let’s talk about Helen Rodríguez Trías.
Helen was born in 1929 in New York City to Puerto Rican parents. Her family returned to Puerto Rico when she was young. Her mother, a schoolteacher, fought for the right to teach in Spanish, rather than the English-language curriculum that had been implemented when the US military invaded in 1898. Much like her mother, Helen would also become invested in advocacy years later.
When Helen was 10, her family returned to New York. There, she faced discrimination in her school system: despite high grades and excellent academic performance, administrators wouldn’t admit her to advanced classes. Similar injustices barred her mother from getting a teacher’s license in New York: her bilingualism was considered a detriment to her career.
Helen and her mother came to the conclusion that she should attend college in Puerto Rico. In 1948, Helen enrolled at the University of Puerto Rico. There, she pursued two passions: a career in health, and a growing involvement in activism. She joined the movement for Puerto Rican independence and took part in a university-wide strike to invite Nationalist leader Don Pedro Albizu Campos [all-BEE-zoo CAM-pos] to campus. However, her brother, who was helping her pay for school, refused to continue sending money if she took part in further political protests. In response, Helen returned home. She married Edward Gonzalez Jr., a professor of labour studies. They had three children together.
Helen returned to school 7 years after leaving and received her medical degree in 1960 when she was 31. She completed her residency at University Hospital in Puerto Rico. There, she became invested in work around abortion rights and women’s health. She saw the consequences of clandestine abortions and lack of access to birth control. Helen established Puerto Rico’s first infant health clinic– within three years, infant mortality had declined by fifty percent.
In 1970, Helen returned to New York, where she headed the pediatrics department at Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx. It served a majority Black and Latinx community, and was often cited for public health violations and outdated care facilities. Helen worked to bridge the gap between her team and the patients they served. She saw the ways social and economic issues, including poverty, inequality, sexism, and racism, impacted health care. Helen believed public health had to take those factors into account when providing care.
In the 1970s, Helen grew increasingly involved in the women’s health movement. She attended her first American Public Health Association meeting in 1971, where she helped create the Women’s Caucus to fight for women’s reproductive rights and work towards ending sexism in healthcare.
Helen took a particular interest in ending sterilization abuse. She saw clearly how class and race affected women’s ability to choose when and if to have children. In the 60s and 70s, middle-class white women were denied sterilization At the same time, low-income women, overwhelmingly women of color, were misled and coerced into sterilizations across the US. In Puerto Rico, particularly, government programs inspired by the eugenics movement promoted sterilization as a method of birth control and performed the procedure on women physicians had judged “unfit to reproduce.” Between the 1930s and 1970s, nearly one third of women of childbearing age in Puerto Rico had been sterilized.
Helen founded two committees that advocated to end sterilization abuse. Both helped bring about federal sterilization guidelines in 1979. In the 80s, Helen continued to be a pivotal figure in public health. She worked as medical director of New York State’s AIDS Institute, and in 1993 became the first Latina director of the American Public Health Association. She also solidified her work in women’s health while coordinating the Pacific Institute for Women’s Health in Los Angeles from 1996 to 1999. In 2001, then-President Bill Clinton awarded Helen the Presidential Citizens Medal.
Later that year, Helen died of lung cancer. She was 72.
All month, we’re honoring women who changed the landscape of health and wellness.
For more information and pictures of some of the work we’re talking about, find us on Facebook and Instagram @womanicapodcast.
Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator.
Talk to you tomorrow!