Ada María Isasi-Díaz papers, circa 1960 -- 2010

Ada María Isasi-Díaz was born on March 22, 1943 in La Habana, Cuba. She left Cuba in 1960 as a political refugee. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, with a major in European History from the College of New Rochelle, New York in 1971. In January 1967 she arrived in Lima, Peru to join the Ursuline sisters as a missionary, serving in the María Madre de Dios Parish as a Junior High School teacher until 1969. In May 1977 Isasi-Díaz earned an M.A. in Medieval History from State University of New York at Brockport and a permanent certificate as High School Teacher in New York in 1978. From Union Theological Seminary in New York she received a Master of Divinity in 1985, an M.Phil in 1989, and a Ph.D. in Christian Social Ethics in 1990. She received an honorary degree, Doctor of Laws, from Lynchburg College in Virginia. From 1978 to 1982 Isasi-Díaz served as Regional Developer on the Office Ministerial Team of the Women's Ordination Conference in Rochester, New York. Isasi-Díaz began lecturing and writing in 1982. She was invited to lecture at Union Theological Seminary prior to beginning her doctoral program. Between 1987 and 1990 she served as a Director of Programs and Associate General Director of Church Women United in New York. Drew University in Madison, New Jersey appointed Isasi-Díaz professor of Ethics and Theology in 1991, where she founded and was co-director of the Hispanic Institute of Theology in 1992. Isasi-Díaz was an activist-theologian involved in the feminist theological movement. She worked on developing and elaborating a Mujerista theology, a theology from a U.S. Latina perspective. The Sister Fund: Theological Renaissance Project is one of the movements Isasi-Díaz was involved with and she was an active member of EATWOT. On several occasions Isasi-Díaz has returned to teach at Seminario Ecuménico de Teología in Cuba. She continued to elaborate Mujerista theology in conversation with liberation and other women-centered theologies. Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz died in New York from cancer on May 13th 2012. Isasi-Díaz is the author of several major books, including : En La Lucha: A Hispanic Women's Liberation Theology (1993), Women of God, Women of the People (1995), Mujerista Theology: A Theology for the 21st Century (1996), La Lucha Continues – Mujerista Theology (2004). Isasi-Díaz co-authored or co-edited several volumes: God's Fierce Whimsy (1983), Inheriting Our Mother's Gardens (1988), Hispanic Women: Prophetic Voice in the Church (1993), Hispanic/Latino Theology – Challenge and Promise (1996), Camino a Emaús: Compartiendo el Ministerio de Jesús (2004).