[2] With other women of color, she worked to move the mostly white women’s movement toward a broader conversation around social and economic justice. The 1970s were a turbulent time for the hospital. She died of cancer at the age of 72, a year after receiving the Presidential Citizen’s Medal for her work with people with AIDS and HIV. Similar programs targeted poorer Black women and girls in the American South. Dr. Helen Rodriguez-Trias received the Presidential Citizen's Medal for her work on behalf of women, children, people with HIV and AIDS, and the poor. 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. In Puerto Rico, for example, between 1938 and 1968, a third of the women of child-bearing age were sterilized without being fully informed of its consequences. Physician Helen Rodriguez-Trias is being honoured for her work as a champion of underprivileged women and children with a Google Doodle on what would have been her 89th birthday. Helen Rodríguez Trías Google Doodle “What brought me to the women’s movement was the women’s health movement,” Rodriguez Trias is famous for saying, but that quote doesn’t end there. Helen RodríGuez TríAs: (July 7, 1929 – December 27, 2001) was a pediatrician, educator and women’s rights activist. She co-founded the Women’s Caucus and the Hispanic Caucus of the American Public Health Association (APHA). “New York Will Add 4 Statues of Women to Help Fix ‘Glaring’ Gender Gap in Public Art.” The New York Times, March 6, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/06/nyregion/women-statues-nyc.html. “NY to Honor Latina Physician and Women’s Rights Activist Helen Rodríguez Trías With a Monument.” Remezcla.com, Oct. 14, 2019. https://remezcla.com/culture/ny-honor-latina-physician-womens-rights-activist-helen-rodriguez-trias-monument/. That was the beginning of my identification with women's issues and reproductive health. Through her leadership in national and international organizations, the impact of her work and advocacy expanded to affect people worldwide, particularly in developing nations. Dr. Helen Rodríguez Trías. At Barnard College there was a conference called the First International Conference on Abortion Rights that was attended by a few thousand women...We organized one of the first consciousness-raising groups of Latino women...A number of incredible things emerged from women talking about their experiences...We shared and we became very bonded. Middle-class white women often had to fight to get the birth control they needed. Dr. Helen Rodriguez-Trias was a founding member of the Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse. Helen Rodríguez Trías Google doodle honors physician who fought for women & children’s right to healthcare Dr. Rodríguez Trías's advocacy work earned her the Presidential Citizen Medal in 2001. El Centro de Servicios Sociales Inc., 2800 Pearl Ave. in Lorain, was selected to receive the Helen Rodríguez-Trías Health Award, according to a news release. In the United States, Rodríguez Trías faced discrimination at school because she was Latina. She argued that the women’s health movement needed to respond to all of this. In the full context of that quote, discussed by Joyce Wilcox in the American Journal of Public Health, she continues: If you talk about global leadership, I think of Bill Foege. Dr. Helen Rodriguez-Trias was a founding member of the Women's Caucus of the American Public Health Association. Through her efforts to support abortion rights, abolish enforced sterilization, and provide neonatal care to underserved people, Helen Rodriguez-Trias expanded the range of public health services for women and children in minority and low-income populations in the United States, Central and South America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.