Great Wall Institute: The Process of the Great Wall of Los AngelesMain MenuResearch of the DecadesResearch1960s Illustration DevelopmentIllustration DevelopmentPlaylists of the DecadesPlaylistssparcinla.org185fc5b2219f38c7b63f42d87efaf997127ba4fcGreat Wall Institute - Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC)
12022-07-28T22:52:14+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49La Operación - The Subversion and Portrayal of Female Agency in Latinx Reproductive Rights6Widespread sterilization operation led by the United States during the 1950s and 60s in Puerto Rico. La Operación is a documentary from 1982 that shows the widespread sterilization operation led by the United States during the 1950s and 60s in Puerto Rico. Ana María García directed the film which highlights how the United States pushed for increased female sterilization in Puerto Rico. She mixes in the documentary a blend of interviews with women from different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds but the interviews are not the only focus of her work; she also incorporates scenes showing a sterilization procedure in addition to other historical and contextual parts.plain2023-08-12T01:21:28+00:001960account from the documentary displays the same message as the propaganda above, that there are prosperity and good living associated with sterilization, based on the belief that too many kids lead to a perpetual state of destitution. These false beliefs led many women to give up their agency over their bodies and cave into getting sterilized—except they did not know all the time what they were signing up for.sparcinla.org185fc5b2219f38c7b63f42d87efaf997127ba4fc
12022-07-28T22:57:50+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a491960s Puerto Rican Women Sterilized as a "solution to poverty"3Many of the women, such as the one featured above, did not know what they were getting themselves into. The operation was marketed as a solution to poverty and many women thought that once their tubes were tied, they could be “untied”. This was not the case and they ended up losing their reproductive rights to give birth to more children.plain2023-10-16T20:39:44+00:001960sLatinx Movements and ActivismWomens Liberation/ Reproductive RightsGina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49
1media/Screen Shot 2022-07-27 at 5.43.05 PM_thumb.png2022-07-28T00:49:37+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a491964 Forced sterilization policies in the US targeted minorities and those with disabilities – and lasted into the 21st century3In August 1964, the North Carolina Eugenics Board met to decide if a 20-year-old Black woman should be sterilized. Because her name was redacted from the records, we call her Bertha. She was a single mother with one child who lived at the segregated O'Berry Center for African American adults with intellectual disabilities in Goldsboro. According to the North Carolina Eugenics Board, Bertha had an IQ of 62 and exhibited “aggressive behavior and sexual promiscuity.” She had been orphaned as a child and had a limited education. Likely because of her “low IQ score,” the board determined she was not capable of rehabilitation. Instead the board recommended the “protection of sterilization” for Bertha, because she was “feebleminded” and deemed unable to “assume responsibility for herself” or her child. Without her input, Bertha’s guardian signed the sterilization form.media/Screen Shot 2022-07-27 at 5.43.05 PM.pngplain2023-10-16T16:24:17+00:00August 1964Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49
1media/FDA approves the pill_thumb.jpeg2022-07-28T23:03:30+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49On May 9, 1960, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the world’s first commercially produced birth-control pill2On May 9, 1960, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the world’s first commercially produced birth-control pill—Enovid-10, made by the G.D. Searle Company of Chicago, Illinois. Development of “the pill,” as it became popularly known, was initially commissioned by birth-control pioneer Margaret Sanger and funded by heiress Katherine McCormick. Sanger, who opened the first birth-control clinic in the United States in 1916, hoped to encourage the development of a more practical and effective alternative to contraceptives that were in use at the time.media/FDA approves the pill.jpegplain2022-07-28T23:04:08+00:001960Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49
12022-07-26T23:35:47+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a491960s Reproductive Justice for Latinas: Coerced, Forced, and Involuntary Sterilization2By 1934, there were 67 birth control clinics operating under federal funding through Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Puerto Rican Relief Administration; in 1936, the Maternal and Childcare Health Association, a private entity, opened 23 more. A law passed the following year—Law 116—made sterilization legal and free for Puerto Rican women. Family planning clinics offering free sterilization were installed in the new factories of the industrial wave; women were encouraged to work in needlework and textile industries there, and were shown favoritism for sterilization compliance. Health officials campaigned door-to-door for sterilization throughout rural communities, too. In a dire economic situation and with few affordable alternative contraceptive methods available, the operation—or la operacion, as it was referred to locally—became commonplace. By the 1960s, about one-third of the female population had been sterilized—and many of those women hadn’t been educated about the permanency of tubal ligation.plain2023-10-16T20:41:39+00:001960Latinx Movements and ActivismWomens Liberation/ Reproductive RightsGina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49
1media/A woman teaches birth control methods in Puerto Rico 1960s_thumb.png2022-07-26T23:28:30+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a491960 Birth Control Pill tested on Puerto Rican Women2Its clinical trials took place not in the mainland United States, but in Puerto Rico, where poor women were given a strong formulation of the drug without being told they were taking part in a trial or about any of the risks they’d face. Three women died during the secretive test phase—but their deaths were never investigated.media/A woman teaches birth control methods in Puerto Rico 1960s.pngplain2022-09-07T00:38:33+00:00Birth Control, Puerto Rican Women, testing minority groups1960Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49
1media/Red Stockings Abortion Speakout_thumb.jpeg2022-07-29T00:05:11+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a491969 Redstockings Abortion Speakout2n 1969, the members of the radical feminist group Redstockings were furious that legislative hearings about abortion featured male speakers discussing such a crucial women's issue. They, therefore, staged their hearing, the Redstockings abortion speak-out, in New York City on March 21, 1969. The Fight to Make Abortion Legal The abortion speak-out took place during the pre-Roe v. Wade era when abortion was illegal in the United States. Each state had its own laws about reproductive matters. It was rare if not unheard of to hear any woman speak publicly about her experience with illegal abortion. FEATURED VIDEO Roe v. Wade Supported By 70% Of Americans Before the radical feminists' fight, the movement to change U.S. abortion laws was more focused on reforming existing laws than repealing them. Legislative hearings on the issue featured medical experts and others who wanted to finesse the exceptions to abortion prohibitions. These "experts" talked about cases of rape and incest or a threat to the life or health of a mother. Feminists shifted the debate to a discussion of a woman's right to choose what to do with her own body. Disruption In February of 1969, Redstockings members disrupted a New York legislative hearing about abortion. The New York Joint Legislature Committee on the Problems of Public Health had called the hearing to consider reforms to the New York law, then 86 years old, on abortion. They roundly condemned the hearing because the "experts" were a dozen men and a Catholic nun. Of all women to speak, they thought a nun would be the least likely to have contended with the abortion issue, other than from her possible religious bias. The Redstockings members shouted and called for the legislators to hear from women who had had abortions, instead. Eventually, that hearing had to be moved to another room behind closed doors. Women Raising Their Voices The members of Redstockings had previously participated in consciousness-raising discussions. They had also drawn attention to women's issues with protests and demonstrations. Several hundred people attended their abortion speak-out in the West Village on March 21, 1969. Some women spoke about what they suffered during illegal “back-alley abortions.” Other women spoke about being unable to get an abortion and having to carry a baby to term, then have the child taken away when it was adopted. Legacy After the Demonstration More abortion speak-outs followed in other U.S. cities, as well as speak-outs on other issues in the subsequent decade. Four years after the 1969 abortion speak-out, the Roe v. Wade decision altered the landscape by repealing most abortion laws then in effect and striking down restrictions on abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. Susan Brownmiller attended the original 1969 abortion speak-out. Brownmiller then wrote about the event in an article for the "Village Voice", "Everywoman's Abortions: 'The Oppressor Is Man.'" The original Redstockings collective broke up in 1970, though other groups with that name continued to work on feminist issues. On March 3, 1989, another abortion speakout was held in New York City on the 20th anniversary of the first. Florynce Kennedy attended, saying "I crawled off my death bed to come down here" as she called for the struggle to continue.media/Red Stockings Abortion Speakout.jpegplain2022-07-29T00:06:41+00:001969Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49
1media/Forced Sterilization _thumb.png2022-07-27T23:33:15+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a491960s A doctor at Los Angeles Community Hospital during the 1970s contested the notion that they targeted the Mexican community for sterilizations.2Maria Figueroa returns to the maternity ward at Los Angeles county hospital. Her story is part of the PBS documentary “No Más Bebés.”Kevin Castro/In this case, the lack of similar efforts to conduct sterilizations in other hospitals underlines the racist sentiments in these forced surgeries. Specifically, in the Los Angeles region, only east LA and LA Community Hospital performed these operations and received such pushback. In other words, the only community that suffered due to uninformed and nonconsensual sterilization was east LA, a predominantly Mexican community. Furthermore, the tactic of asking non-English speakers to sign a form in English in most cases applied to the Mexican community in Los Angeles.media/Forced Sterilization .pngplain2022-07-27T23:36:06+00:00A common argument given by doctors is that nothing they did shows they specifically targeted the Mexican community. Nevertheless, the standard operating procedures implemented at the hospital included asking patients to sign forms while under labor, not translating forms into Spanish for Spanish speakers, and overall not ensuring the informed consent at the time of signage. Combined, the doctors’ lack of concern for their patients and systematic targeting of patients while under labor and with English forms is understood to be forced sterilization. Regardless of original intention, be it money due to extra surgeries or increased prestige due to more successful surgeries completed, these doctors ultimately forcibly sterilized hundreds of women from a minority group, terminating their chances for reproduction and raising a family; they were able to do so primarily due to the race of their victims.1960sGina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49
12022-07-20T20:17:38+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49Feminist Health Movement1From its earliest days in the 1960s, the women's liberation movement focused on abortion and women's right to control their bodies. Some of the more radical groups engaged in underground abortion clinics, most notably in Chicago; others, like the Boston's Women's Health Collective began writing/publishing projects; and organizations like NOW formed Task Forces to work on the issue of reproductive rights. In fact, it was in NOW that leaders of the feminist health movement, Carol Downer and Lorraine Rothman, first became active and initially demonstrated gynecological self-examination. And while Downer and Rothman went on to open the first Feminist Women's Health Center at the Crenshaw Women's Center, other women, like Vi Verreaux worked at and opened more conventionally structured, service-oriented clinics for women. This series is comprised of interviews with these three women. The long interviews with Downer and Rothman document the evolution and expansion of their work, and although the much shorter interview with Verreaux barely touches on her clinic work, it does provides a glimpse into a service-oriented, community-based clinic.media/eScholarship UC item 7bq7z68v.pdfplain2022-07-20T20:17:38+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49
1media/NYC 1960s Abortion Protest_thumb.jpeg2022-07-29T00:09:08+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49The Abortion Counseling Service of Women's Liberation began operating in Chicago under the code name "Jane."1Photograph from an abortion protest march in New York City, 1977. Peter Keegan / Getty Imagesmedia/NYC 1960s Abortion Protest.jpegplain2022-07-29T00:09:08+00:001969Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49
1media/Sterilization in East LA_thumb.png2022-07-27T23:31:18+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a491960s - 1970s Uninformed Consent to Sterilization - Latina Women in targeted in East LA1Similar to the sterilization that occurred in Puerto Rico to address a seeming overpopulation on the island, women in East LA experienced sterilization in the form of uninformed consent, where they were unable to either understand what they were signing due to it being written in English, or they did not remember signing it in the first place due to being in labor.media/Sterilization in East LA.pngplain2022-07-27T23:31:18+00:00Dolores Madrigal (l) and attorney Antonia Hernández (r) at a press conference announcing the 1975 lawsuit Madrigal v. Quilligan. Madrigal, along with ten other women, sued the head of obstetrics at the USC Medical Center for forced sterilization.1960sGina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49
12022-07-26T23:41:03+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49Draft 1960s Reproductive Rights1Mike Davis description on sterilization practices in Puerto Ricoplain2022-07-26T23:41:03+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49