Fertile Matters: The Politics of Mexican - Origin Women's Reproduction

Chicana Matters Series

by Elena R. Gutiérrez

While the stereotype of the persistently pregnant Mexican-origin woman is longstanding, in the past fifteen years her reproduction has been targeted as a major social problem for the United States. Due to fear-fueled news reports and public perceptions about the changing composition of the nation's racial and ethnic makeup—the so-called Latinization of America—the reproduction of Mexican immigrant women has become a central theme in contemporary U. S. politics since the early 1990s. In this exploration, Elena R. Gutiérrez considers these public stereotypes of Mexican American and Mexican immigrant women as "hyper-fertile baby machines" who "breed like rabbits." She draws on social constructionist perspectives to examine the historical and sociopolitical evolution of these racial ideologies, and the related beliefs that Mexican-origin families are unduly large and that Mexican American and Mexican immigrant women do not use birth control. Using the coercive sterilization of Mexican-origin women in Los Angeles as a case study, Gutiérrez opens a dialogue on the racial politics of reproduction, and how they have developed for women of Mexican origin in the United States. She illustrates how the ways we talk and think about reproduction are part of a system of racial domination that shapes social policy and affects individual women's lives.

Genres: Feminism, Politics, Nonfiction, Academic, Latinx

221 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2008

Reviews

[Riegs · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read, a must-discuss, book. This title has come back for me in a big way, now that our government is okay with kidnapping Mexican/Latinx children from their families at the border. Dr. Gutiérrez was one of my most favorite professors at UIC. I learned so much from this book about the struggle for reproductive justice in the Latinx community, and about women's healthcare overall. Her research describes the cruel politicization of Mexican women's reproductive rights, and how we physically violate women of color through healthcare.

Ten years after its publication, we're still pushing vilifying narratives about "anchor babies" and women being unfit to mother their own children due to poverty and/or cultural differences. We still haven't talked about how Latinx women were (are?) forcibly sterilized for the crime of being poor and female. I hope this book reaches more people soon.

[Laney]

“I remember driving around city terrace. It took a long time. All I can tell is that this case consumed my life...I must have interviewed a hundred women. I remember driving all over East L.A. with a map looking for addresses of these women. And then I had the difficult job of saying to many of the women, ‘Do you know you were sterilized?’ It was a very painful process. And some of them knew, but they all had the misconception that their tubes were tied but could be untied.”

Why do we use the fertility of immigrant women as a scapegoat for all of America’s problems??

[Alexandra Silverstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most eye opening reads I have ever read and an important read for anyone who desires a better understanding of what femenism is all about. Sociologist Elena Gutierrez examines stereotypes about Latina women’s reproduction and the ways these stereotypes that Latina women “breed like rabbits” fueled efforts to surgically sterilize them, often without their knowledge or consent. All women should have reproductive justice and this is a history of population control that was swept under the rug.

[Travis Jensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting analysis of fertility rhetoric against Chicana women

A really good argument for how the government and other institutions have used population rhetoric to target the fertility of chicana women