Dr. Elena Padilla: A Pioneer at the Crossroads of Urban Ethnography and Puerto Rican Latinidad

Puerto Rican women scholars are building bridges and challenging the boundaries in the field of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies.

A conversation with Dr. Elena Padilla and Dr. Merida M. Rúa who authored an edited volume, entitled, Latino Urban Ethnography and the Work of Elena Padilla University of Illinois Press 2010) will take place at Hunter College on the 4th of April at 4 p.m. at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies. Dr. Arlene Torres (AFPRL) will introduce the guests speakers.

The edited volume focuses on 1947 Master’s thesis Puerto Rican Immigrants in New York and Chicago: A Study in Comparative Assimilation” and its implications for contemporary research in the social sciences. It also speaks to the intellectual legacy of Dr. Elena Padilla (Professor Emeritus, NYU) who served as a research assistant for the noted sociologist C. Wright Mills et. al on the seminal text The Puerto Rican Journey (1957) and conducted her own groundbreaking study, Up From Puerto Rico (1958). Her work established a foundation that would challenge the emergent “culture of poverty” thesis and related public policy.

Dr. Merida M. Rúa is Interim Chair and Associate Professor of American Studies and Latino Studies at Williams College. She conducts historical and ethnographic research in Chicago. In addition to the edited volume, she recently published Grounded Identidad: Making New Lives in Chicago’s Puerto Rican Neighborhoods (2012). The event is being co-sponsored with the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, and the Arts and Sciences 2012- 2013 Research/Writing Seminar, ‘Race and Ethnic Inequality in the “Post Racial” America.’

This event is also being co- sponsored by the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO) with support from the Arts and Sciences Research/Writing Seminar, ‘Race and Ethnic Inequality in the “Post Racial” America’ at Africana & Puerto Rican/Latino Studies, Hunter College.