*LATINAMERICANIST

 University of Florida Center for Latin American Studies I Volume 38, Number 2 I Fall 2007



Dr. Helen Safa

 Awarded LASA's Highest Honor


D r. Helen I. Safa, Professor Emerita ofi,..,l.i...1...- and Latin
 American Studies at the University of Florida, was presented the
 Kalman Silvert award of the Latin American Studies Association
(LASA) at its International Congress in Montreal, September 5-7, 2007.
The Silvert award recognizes senior members of the profession who have
made distinguished lifetime contributions to the study of Latin America
and the Caribbean. The prize is named after the first president of the
5,700 member association.
 Among the panelists at the Congress plenary in Dr. Safa's honor, were
Carmen Diana Deere, Director of the UF Center for Latin American
Studies, two of her former students A. Lynn Bolles who received her
degree while Safa was at Rutgers University and Nathalie Lebon, a UF
Ph.D., and colleague Jorge Duany from the University of Puerto Rico.
 Dr. Safa joined the faculty of the University of Florida in 1980 as the
Director of the Center for Latin American Studies (1980-85). She was a
core faculty member of the Center and the Department of ,.. ild 1. I!.1._-
until her retirement in 1997.
 Dr. Safa was President of LASA from 1983-85, and also served on the
Executive Committee several times. Among her initiatives as LASA
President was the first formal academic exchange program between U.S.
and Cuban scholars, funded by a grant from The Ford Foundation. She
was also instrumental in the founding and growth of the Gender and
Feminist Studies Section, which helped transform LASA from a largely
North American male organization in the 1960s and early 1970s into the
more diverse organization it is today. She serves on the editorial board of
the Latin American Research Review, among other journals.
 Dr. Safa began her career as a Latinamericanist in Puerto Rico, where
she subsequently pursued research for her masters' thesis and doctoral
dissertation. Her doctoral studies at Columbia were partially funded by a
scholarship from the University of Puerto Rico. Considered to be one of
the pioneers in the field of urban iiii........1.- her early research
resulted in The Urban Poor of Puerto Rico (1974).
 Her continued interest in the Caribbean is reflected in UF's Caribbean
Migration Program, which in the 1980s brought students and faculty
from the Caribbean to the University; and a fellowship program on
Afro-American identity and cultural diversity which culminated in a
major conference and a special issue of the journal Latin American
Perspectives (1998) on Race and National Identity in the Americas.
 Throughout her career, Dr. Safa has pursued an interest in the causes


and consequences of
inequality, focusing on class
issues in her early work on
poverty and urbanization,
moving to gender in the 1970s
and 1980s, and in her most
recent work in corporating
race. The Myth of the Male
Breadwinner: Women and
Industrialization in the
Caribbean (1995) compares
women industrial workers in
Cuba, Puerto Rico and the
 A Dr. Helen Safa.
Dominican Republic. Her
interest in the social impact of
women's paid labor force participation is reflected in her earlier
co-edited publications with June Nash, Sex and Class in Latin America
(1976) and Women and C i ... in Latin America (1986), while her
participation in the international women's movement contributed to
another credited publication with Eleanor Leacock entitled Women's
Work (1986).
 In addition to her books, Dr. Safa has published over 60 articles and
book chapters on issues of poverty and urbanization, migration, gender
and development, social movements, mestizaje, and family structure. Dr.
Safa has been honored as a founder of Puerto Rican ,d s. ...1.._- by the
Puerto Rican Association of,,.ai.l.... ... .._- and the American t ..... 1..-
Society. She received the 2003 Conrad Arensberg award from the Society
for the,.,1,....1.._ of Work of the American Anthropological
Association. At UF, the Center for Women's Studies and Gender Research
awarded her its 2006 Uppity Woman Award.
 UF Center Director Carmen Diana Deere noted at the 2007 LASA
Congress plenary in Safa's honor that, "It is precisely because our Helen
is an Uppity Woman that we are gathered here today, to recognize her
notable scholarly contributions to the field of Latin American Studies
and her years of distinguished leadership and committed service to the
Latin American Studies Association. It is worth noting that Dr. Safa is
only the third woman to receive the Kalman Silvert award among 17
honorees."


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