Elena Padilla

Elena Padilla (April 4, 1925 – 2012) was a Puerto Rican anthropologist. She conducted pioneering research on Puerto Rican migrations to the United States. Padilla attended the University of Puerto Rico, and after graduation was sent on scholarship to study at the University of Chicago. She wrote a master's thesis on Puerto Ricans in New York and Chicago that was published in 1947, and has been cited as a pioneering work.

After writing her thesis, Padilla moved to New York City, earning a PhD at Columbia University and researching for the 1956 work The People of Puerto Rico. She later worked at the Cornell University Medical College, directing a study of the medical experiences of Puerto Ricans living in East Harlem that was published in 1958 as Up from Puerto Rico. Padilla later directed doctoral studies at New York University's Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and as of 2005 was a scholar in residence at St. Barnabas Hospital.

Although her anthropological work has not been well recognized, in recent years it has gained increasing recognition as pioneering in the field of Puerto Rican studies.

Life and career

Early life and graduate school (1925–1947) Padilla was born on April 4, 1925, in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, where she grew up.

She entered graduate school on scholarship at the age of nineteen, The thesis influenced later research into the topics it focused on.

She also chaired a New York City council on comprehensive health planning. After Cornell, Padilla taught the politics of health and mental health at New York University (NYU) and worked in Columbia's school of public health, administrative medicine.

Legacy Despite her pioneering research in the field, her anthropological work has not been well recognized. The anthropologists Faye V. Harrison and Ira Harrison wrote that Padilla did not have a lengthy career in academia because of the "fraternity of anthropologists" which sought to maintain the "'purity' of science"; in contrast, Padilla's work to document "subjugated knowledges" often inherently contained what the academic community considered partisan advocacy. A 2001 volume of Centro: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies on Puerto Ricans in Chicago noted "intellectual indebtedness" to the work of Padilla. She was honored by the Puerto Rican Studies Association in 2002 as a pioneer in the field of Puerto Rican studies.