Doctor Anita Figueredo was so small that when she was in the operating room completing a surgery, she had to stand on a small stool to help her.

Figueredo was under five feet, but her heart and what she accomplished in her 93 years were incomparable: She was the first female surgeon in all of San Diego County.

Although Dr. Figueredo passed away five years ago, in 2010, her legacy continues having a strong impact in the community.
This year she is one of six women inducted into the San Diego Women’s Hall of Fame at a ceremony on March 1st at the Jacobs Center, celebrating Women’s History Month. In addition to Figueredo, another Latina was honored during the event, educator and artist Viviana Enrique Acosta.

Besides her work as an oncology surgeon at Scripps in La Jolla for several decades, Figueredo was an intimate friend of Mother Teresa, who used to call her “the smiling apostle of charity.”

Doctor Figueredo founded her own non-profit organization, Friends of the Poor, in 1982, with the goal of helping needy families in San Diego and Tijuana. The organization continues its mission today.

Figueredo was born in Costa Rica and moved to the U.S. with her mother when she was barely five years old, to be able to achieve her early dream of becoming a doctor. That was almost impossible in her native country; so much, that she was the first Costa Rican woman to earn a medical degree.

“My mother always retained very strong ties to the family back in San Jose and spoke perfect Spanish all her life,” said her daughter, Sarita East-man. She was proud to be Latina and, as a physician, served a large Spanish-speaking population.”

A year before her mother’s death, Eastman published her biography, A Trail of Light: The Very Full Life of Dr. Anita Figueredo, which was translated into Spanish in Costa Rica.

“Anita was the most loving mother to her nine children that you can imagine,” Eastman said. “We were all intensely proud of her while she was alive, and are delighted that her extraordinary story will be heard by future generations through the San Diego Women’s Hall of Fame.”

Ashley Gardner, executive director at the Women’s Museum of California, said that each year there are Latinas inducted into the San Diego Women’s Hall of Fame.

“We have striven to include in our selection of Inductees, a complete representation of our entire community,” Gardner said. “And, in San Diego, with our extensive Hispanic population and history, it would be a major oversight not to have at least one Latina included in our line-up each year.”

Educator and artist Viviana Enrique Acosta is the other Latina selected this year for her efforts in maintaining Latino traditions and cultures alive through dance and arts, in projects such as Ballet Folklórico en Aztlán and Muevete Dance Studio.

Her own mother, Herminia Tecihtzin Enrique Acosta was part of the San Diego Women’s Hall of Fame in 2004 also for her cultural work.

“I feel very honored and privileged to be included,” said Viviana Enrique Acosta. “It is true dance, music, and dress from different regions in ballet foklorico that the history of our people is preserved and shared.”

Dr. Figueredo was selected in the Trailblazer category and Enrique Acosta in the Historian category.

“We feel the powerful stories of theses women are an inspiration, not only to their community but to the broader community at large,” Gardner said. “Additionally, inclusion and diversity have been and are the cornerstone of the values expressed at the Women’s Museum of California.”

More than 300 people attended the March 1st ceremony, even though there was a storm that day in San Diego.

During the event, Viviana Enrique Acosta said she was humbled by the recognition.

“People like me just don’t get awards,” she said, jokingly.

To learn more about the San Diego Women’s Hall of Fame, please visit www.womenshalloffamesd.org.