Helen Rodríguez Trías

Helen Rodríguez Trías (July 7, 1929 – December 27, 2001) was an American pediatrician, educator and women's rights activist. She was the first Latina president of the American Public Health Association (APHA), a founding member of the Women's Caucus of the APHA, and a recipient of the Presidential Citizens Medal. She is credited with helping to expand the range of public health services for women and children in minority and low-income populations around the world.

Early years Rodríguez Trías's parents had been living in New York during the early 20th century. After Rodríguez Trías's birth in 1929 on July 9th, her family moved back to Puerto Rico. Her family returned to New York once again when she was ten years old, where she experienced racism and discrimination. Even though she had received good grades in school and knew how to speak English, she was placed in a class with students with learning disabilities. It wasn't until she participated in a poem recital, her teacher realized that she was gifted and sent her to a class for gifted children. She later choose the medical career path because it "combined the things I loved the most, science and people."

Puerto Rican independence activist Rodríguez Trías's mother was a school teacher in Puerto Rico. However, in New York, she was unable to get a teacher's license. Therefore, her mother had to take in boarders to meet her financial needs and pay the rent. After Rodríguez Trías graduated from high school, she decided she would like to study medicine and that her chances would be much better in Puerto Rico because the island had a good scholarship system.

University of Puerto Rico had a very strong independence movement and Rodríguez Trías became involved with the student faction of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. When Nationalist leader Don Pedro Albizu Campos had been invited to speak by the student council; the chancellor of the university, Jaime Rexach Benítez, did not permit Albizu access to the campus. The students consequently went on strike, with Rodríguez Trías amongst them, but her brother did not approve of this. She returned to New York after he threatened to cut off her college expenses.

Medical career

During her residency at the University Hospital in San Juan, she established the first center for the care of newborn babies in Puerto Rico. The hospital's death rate for newborns decreased 50 percent within three years.

After attending the conference, during her years in Puerto Rico, Rodríguez Trías became aware of U.S. sterilization campaigns located there.

The United States was also using Puerto Rico as a laboratory for the development of birth control technology.

On January 8, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Rodríguez Trías with the Presidential Citizen's Medal, the second-highest civilian award in the United States, for her work on behalf of women, children, people with HIV and AIDS, and poor people.

Rodriguez Trias died later that year, on December 27 due to lung cancer.

On July 7, 2018, which would have been Rodríguez Trías' 89th birthday, Google featured her in a Google Doodle in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Singapore.

In 2019, Chirlane McCray announced that New York City would build a statue honoring Rodríguez Trías in St. Mary's Park, near Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx.

Overall, Rodríguez Trías leaves behind a legacy that can be explained with her own words: