Monday, May 2, 2016
6:00PM
Assembly Hall
M.E.Ch.A. de UChicago presents a screening of the film No Más Bebés, which tells the story of immigrant mothers who sued county doctors, the state, and the U.S. government after they were pushed into sterilizations while giving birth at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center during the 1960s and 70s. The screening will be followed by a discussion with producer Professor Virginia Espino and featured plaintiff Consuelo Hermosillo. Ms. Espino will discuss her work researching the narrative portrayed in the documentary and bringing it to public attention in partnership with Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Renee Tajima-Peña. Ms. Hermosillo will speak to the transformative power of sharing her navigation through trauma, shame, and healing in pursuit of reproductive justice.
This event is part of our Latino Heritage Week series, which will focus on art as a tool for changing racial, economic, and political inequalities.
Virginia Espino is a historian at the UCLA Center for Oral History Research, and has conducted oral histories with major figures in the Latina/o community. Her research on coercive sterilization at LACMC provided the basis for the documentary project. Her research was published in Las Obreras: Chicana Politics of Work and Family, edited by Vicki L. Ruiz, and Latinas in the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia. She has served on the California Commission for Sex Equity, and the Los Angeles Chicano/Latino Education Committee.
Consuelo Hermosillo was a plaintiff in the 1975 class action lawsuit Madrigal v Quilligan, in which ten Mexican-origin women sued the Women’s Hospital at the University of Southern California/Los Angeles County General Hospital for nonconsensual sterilizations. In No Más Bebés, Ms. Hermosillo shares her experience with forced sterilization and the ensuing court case. Today, she is the head chef for her son Oscar’s string of successful restaurants in Los Angeles.
This event is free and open to the public.
Sponsored by the Global Voices Lecture Series and Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlan de UChicago.