Padilla-Goodman becomes fifth community director of ADL

By KAREN LOZINSKI, Special to the CCJN

The walls of Allison Padilla-Goodman’s office at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) are papered with maps in bold colors—maps of the states that define the South Central Region: Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Their bright hues contrast with the deep, churning grays of the quick spring thunderstorm that punctuates the afternoon.

New South Central Region ADL community director Allison Padilla-Goodman fields a call to her office (Photo credit by Karen Lozinski).

Padilla-Goodman is welcoming, open and confident; she’s ready to talk about her myriad experiences and achievements in education, research, writing, and social work, and what she plans in her role as the recently installed fifth community director of the ADL’s South Central Region.

“One thing that has been a driving philosophy in my life is that I—very honestly and very humbly—really believe that everybody in this world has the power to do something great. Everybody has a gift to share,” Padilla-Goodman asserts.

She’s careful to temper this hopeful claim with a dose of realism, courtesy of her work. Many of her published works and academic presentations confront the societal and economic obstacles faced by diverse populations in a post-Katrina New Orleans environment.

“Of course, as a sociologist, it’s important to also consider context: socio-economic status, gender, institutionalized racism, history, (and) experience,” she relates. “If there were more of a push to understand people and their context, history, situations, and experiences, there could be more understanding of (people’s) value too.”

Much like the Mississippi River has continually defined the shape, character, and destiny of the Crescent City, an abiding love of education and scholarship runs through Padilla-Goodman, which is understandable when one considers her impressive history of service in education in three diverse settings: New Orleans, New York, and Hong Kong.

A fourth-generation New Orleanian, she is grateful for her work and experiences abroad. Yet, no matter where she has lived, Padilla-Goodman has always remained steadfast in her conviction that New Orleans is home. She carries an enduring love for the city and reflects romantically on the pre-Katrina home she shared with her husband in the Seventh Ward, an area that afforded the two of them regular opportunities to revel in Sunday afternoon “second line” parades.

A lifetime of learning, a career in education, and solid fieldwork in the service of others have paved the way to Padilla-Goodman’s new role at the ADL.

A scholar by avocation and occupation, Padilla-Goodman is a firm believer in the power of education. (Photo by Karen Lozinski)

She assumed the directorship in April, after Talora Gross’ abbreviated stint in the position in 2013 (See related CCJN story here.). Padilla-Goodman follows in the fabled footsteps of local ADL founder A. I. “B” Botnick, who served as the director for almost three decades. He was succeeded by Jerry Himmelstein and, more recently, by Cathy Glaser, all of whom have held this important and highly visible position.

A sociologist who recently completed her doctoral dissertation at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center, Padilla-Goodman’s journey in the education profession and service to the causes of social justice began with Summerbridge, now known as Breakthrough Collaborative. Founded in 1978, the organization provides an accelerated summer program for underserved and overlooked middle school students, with a staff comprised of pre-professional, hands-on teaching residents.

Padilla-Goodman credits this experience as profound, both personally and professionally, stating: “[It] opened my eyes and inspired me to understand other people better.”

Through her career, Padilla-Goodman has served as both the dean of faculty for Summerbridge in New Orleans and Hong Kong. She has also had several stints as the program director in Hong Kong.

Padilla-Goodman’s academic background and achievements at the collegiate level have afforded her the impetus to travel and work both in the United States and abroad. A semester in Florence, Italy spent as an undergraduate at Middlebury College in Vermont proved life changing and provided the fodder for her eventual baccalaureate thesis when she met and befriended a group of Albania refugees from Kosovo.

Through their eyes, Padilla-Goodman gained perspective on growing up and living in a war-torn region and the intense loss and atrocities that invariably result from that situation

“I met these people and they were really fun, but there was so much more behind their everyday than my everyday,” she explained. “There was so much resiliency and wisdom they had, that I didn’t.”

Upon her return stateside, Padilla-Goodman switched her major from Art History and Italian to Anthropology and Sociology, a move which then took her to Tulane University’s Stone Center for Latin American Studies for her master’s degree. Later, she matriculated to CUNY for another master’s and very recently worked both in New York and New Orleans on her doctoral degree.

Padilla-Goodman taught at the collegiate level while researching, writing, and publishing articles and papers and also working in the field as a sociologist, most recently as the director of Special Projects at the Harriet Tubman Charter School in Algiers.

She also served as the director of youth programs at SilenceIsViolence, which was founded following the horrific and senseless murders of local musician Dinerral Shavers in late 2006, and filmmaker Helen Hill in early 2007.

According to its website, the mission of SilenceIsViolence is “to call upon both citizens and public officials to achieve a safe New Orleans across all communities.” The organization engages youth in positive expressions in order to counter the culture of violence that has characterized the city.

When asked about possible links between her efforts with SilenceisViolence and the ADL, Padilla-Goodman, is quite forthright.

“SilenceIsViolence is a wonderful organization that works with victims and perpetrators of violence and tries to get [the latter] to stop,” she explains. “They understand there’s an important space in New Orleans that needs to be cultivated for violence to stop, and that’s culture and education.”

She continues: “I think ADL is similar in some ways. ADL is willing to get in the trenches. There’s work to be done on the ground that’s really important. ADL has put education at the forefront of their policy initiative.”

But the education to which she refers is not necessarily aimed at instructing the younger set. “It’s not just training youth—there’s police training, and training community leaders on how to respond to hate crimes and extreme violence,” she emphasizes.

Padilla-Goodman views the ADL’s South Central office as particularly critical to the organization’s mission as a whole, acknowledging the encompassing framework of ADL’s efforts with fighting anti-Semitism as a springboard to secure justice for all.

“The Deep South is one of the most important regions to do social justice, anti-racism, understanding, and empathy-centric organizing. The Deep South is a hotbed for those issues,” she states.

Some of the work Padilla-Goodman has planned for the ADL involves interfaith and intercultural efforts, predicated on a belief that Judaism is more than faith – that it is a means of deep cultural affiliation and identity.

“I think there are some interesting places to do more alliance building, and building a bigger umbrella for people willing to fight against hate in New Orleans,” she explains.

An enthusiastic proponent of arts education as well as scholarship in general, Padilla-Goodman also takes a strong stance as a sociologist on the woeful state of arts education in this country.

She believes the consistent and regrettable devaluing of arts education is a byproduct of recent education reform. This disturbing development, along with overwhelming advents in technology, the deep permeation of the media in societal psyche, global-economic integration, and the growth of the corporate model have all contributed to the lack of teaching creativity to youth, she says.

“I think, in a lot of schools, teaching creativity is not one of the goals, and creativity is one of the most important things you can get out of a K-12 education,” she muses. “If you can’t be creative, you don’t know what you can do, and you can’t unlock your potential.”

Padilla-Goodman concludes: “The state has kind of put its foot on the neck of music and arts education, and it’s been squeezed and squeezed. It’s really important to support arts education—music, art, creative writing, dance—those things are crucial for people to know who they are.”