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Lilly B. Padía was raised in an interfaith, Russian-Jewish, white and Mexican-American family in a predominantly Black city. She attended public schools in Oakland from kindergarten to 12th grade, where the legacy of the Black Panther Party shaped her approach to education as liberation.

She comes to Chicago by way of the Bronx, New York, where she taught grades K-8 as a certified bilingual special education teacher and instructional coach. She worked as an adjunct professor and academic advisor for graduate Bilingual, English as a New Language (ENL), and Special Education teachers at CUNY's City College of New York and Hunter College.