Renowned, award-winning anthropologist, trailblazing Pomona College professor

Ralph L. Bolton II, 86, professor emeritus of anthropology at Pomona College, died December 3 while visiting a community of friends and writing about the culture of Tangier, Morocco.

He was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on October 28, 1939, attended high school at the Staunton Military Academy in Virginia, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1961 from Pomona College with a major in international relations. After starting a doctoral program in political science at MIT, he learned about and applied to a newly opened program called the Peace Corps and was accepted as a volunteer to serve in Peru. On completing a language and culture training program, he was given the job title of anthropologist and sent to the Peruvian Altiplano to work for the Programa Puno-Tambopata, an International Labour Organization charged with improving agricultural conditions for small family farms in communities around Lake Titicaca.

After three years living in a “campamento” on Chijnaya, an unproductive hacienda that was to become a new community, Ralph wrote “My experiences in Peru were transformative, expanding my horizons and allowing me to diminish my introverted nature and my sense of self-doubt. I would become an anthropologist.” Deciding not to return to MIT, he enrolled at Cornell University where he completed his Ph.D. in applied anthropology in 1972.

He began his career at Pomona College in 1971, teaching a wide range of courses including Andean anthropology, medical anthropology, human sexuality, and HIV/AIDS. Collaborating with scholars in Belgium, he carried out international research for more than 20 years on HIV among gay men. He was among a small group of anthropologists who in the mid-1980s helped to create the AIDS and  Anthropology Research Group. He was a member of the AIDS Task Force and subsequently the AIDS Commission of the American Anthropological Association.

Recognized for his research in several areas, with over 120 publications, Ralph was awarded three Fulbright Awards to Norway, Peru, and Belgium; received the annual Franz Boas Award for Exemplary Service to Anthropology in 2010; and, in 2025, the prestigious Malinowski Award from the Society for Applied Anthropology for lifetime achievement in dedication of anthropology to the solution of human problems. He was also the recipient of the Sargent Shriver Award for Distinguished Humanitarian Service from the National Peace Corps Association, two Stirling Awards for Culture and Personality Studies from the Society for Psychological Anthropology, Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center Residency Program, and the C.S. Ford Award for Cross-Cultural Research given by the Society for Cross-Cultural Research.

His contributions go beyond academic publications and research. Keeping to his values that it is necessary “to work with communities to achieve their goals, not merely to study them,” he embarked on two major community adventures.

In 1996, he and his partner Robert Frost bought a deteriorating adobe in Santa Fe, New Mexico, originally built in stages between the mid-19^th and mid-20^th centuries, and in danger of being torn down to make way for a condominium complex. The restoration of this estate, recognized as one of the most significant historical properties in the city and former home of poet Witter Bynner, was the gathering place in the 1930s for many well-known writers and artists. For 18 years, the couple ran the estate as the Inn of the Turquoise Bear bed-and-breakfast, reestablishing this home as a place open to the public to enjoy, where people learned about the human rights legacy of Bynner and this home’s place in 20^th century intellectual history. The restoration garnered several important city and state preservation and architectural awards.

Another community achievement happened when, after an absence of 30 years, he was invited back in 2004 to Chijnaya, Peru by the son of a villager who was then a child when he was there in the Peace Corps. Although his visit was intended to be as a tourist, when the community learned the date of his arrival, they threw an all-day party to welcome him back. In true Andean fashion, they “anticipated reciprocity,” and said they had some projects on which they needed help. The result was the creation of The Chijnaya Foundation in 2005, which supports health, education, and community development in rural Andean communities.

“Ralph will be remembered for his generosity, warmth, openness, scholarship, and ‘respect for traditional knowledge and local understandings,’ to use his words,” his family shared.

He is survived by his husband David Cajo in Peru; his life partner Robert Frost of Palm Springs, California; sons Eugene Bolton (Kimberly) of San Diego, California, and R. Gabriel Bolton (Kathy);   grandchildren Sophia, Benjamin, and Brynn Bolton in Turlock, California; and Charlene Bolton of Claremont, mother of his sons and former wife.

A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. Saturday, February 28, 2026 at Wiefels Funeral Home, 690 Vella Rd., Palm Springs, CA 92264.

Contributions in his memory can be made to the Chijnaya Foundation chijnayafoundation.org.