THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT

Dr. Ada María Isasi-Díaz

March 22, 1943 – May 13, 2012

“It was in the Catholic movement in the Catholic church that I began to learn about gender oppression.”

Ada María Isasi-Díaz was a major force in Hispanic, mujerista, and feminist theology, liberation theologies rooted in the everyday experience of Latinas. As her foundational 1996 book Mujerista Theology: A Theology for the Twenty-First Century put it, her work aims at creating “a public voice for Latinas and capturing a political space for that voice,” including in academic theology. Isasi-Díaz was professor emerita of ethics and theology as well as founder and co-director of the Hispanic Institute of Theology at Drew University in Madison.

Photo. Ada María Isasi-Díaz in 1980 (NCR photo by Pam Bauer).