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== Second Article: No más bebés ==

No Más Bebés (lit. 'No More Babies') is a documentary film that explores stories of immigrant women who were sterilized after giving birth. After being sterilized without their knowledge at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, the mothers sued county doctors, the State of California, and the U.S. government. Having collected hospital records from a whistleblower, Chicana lawyer Antonia Hernandez led the lawsuit against powerful institutions.

Synopsis
Each mother involved in the Madrigal v. Quilligan trial recounts their sterilization, their dreams and aspirations concerning family before the incident, and their involvement in fighting for Chicana rights. Their family members are also introduced many of which just learned about the sterilizations performed on their loved ones. The documentary transitions to focusing on Madrigal v. Quilligan, introducing Antonia Hernandez as the lawyer in charge of the case. The film highlights the obstacles she faced in building her case against the powerful institutions and doctors that were on trial. The documentary comes to a close with ruling of the trial in favor of the Hospital and the final thoughts of the figures in the documentary. Video and news clips from the '70s that are centered on the women, court case, and hospital appear throughout the documentary.

Themes
The main theme focused on the history of sterilization (medicine), specifically how it affected Latinx women and their families.

Mothers
Consuelo Hermosillo: Originally from Vera Cruz, Mexico, Hermosillo always fought for the rights of her children and community, making her well known within her neighborhood. She loves children and wanted 4 or 5, but she was sterilized at 23. The doctors made her sign in a gurney directly after giving birth while she was in a significant amount of pain. Next to her signature was "No mas bebes por vidas" which translates to, "No more babies for lives". She joined the court case, but was skeptical of the outcome. During her recorded interview with Prof. Ibanez, she described how she always dreamt that she had her baby and that she would go to Mexico and people would always want to see him. "A miracle that nobody else can have".

María Hurtado: A strong willed woman who found way to cross the traditional boundaries of the role of Chicana women. Her strong relationship with her husband of 51 1/2 years is evident throughout the film. Because she was not fluent in English, her five children would translate for her. The Hurtados valued family and planned to have a large family. She joined the lawsuit immediately after Antonia Hernandez had asked her to."Keep fighting for what you want"

Dolores Madrigal: Dolores and her husband were factory workers that saved up for their family and house. Her relationship with her husband became strained after learning about the sterilization several weeks after it occurred. Her husband directed his anger at her verbally and physically, which was compounded by his drinking problem. Madrigal recounted him saying, "Women do this to be with other men and their husbands never found out". Madrigal was the lead plaintiff in the historic civil rights trial. Her son found out about the sterilization during the production of the film.

Maria Figueroa: A family-oriented living in East LA, was always with her children when not at work. Like the other mothers, Figueroa's life changed drastically when she was sterilized, which impacted her life and marriage. She chose to stay married for her children, and contemplated committing suicide because of the effects the sterilization had on her marriage and mental state. After informing her husband of her sterilization, he told her that she could not conduct any interviews or testify.

Melvina Hernández: A homemaker that was sterilized at the age of 23 and did not find out until four years later. She was told to sign a paper that was in English for a C-section that was needed if the doctor was going to "save her and the baby." Hernandez refused, because her husband was not present, but the nurse told her to sign or she would die. The nurse ended up grabbing her hand and signed the paper for her while she was in labor.

Attorneys
Antonia Hernandez: Civil Rights attorney. A UCLA Law School Graduate, Hernandez immigrated from Mexico and grew up in East LA. Employed at the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice (LACLJ), she was one of the two attorneys who filed Madrigal v. Quilligan at the age of 26. She decided to file the case after Dr. Rosenfeld landed in the legal aids office. Hernandez spent her time driving up and down Lincoln Heights in East LA trying to find the mothers, even though their statute of limitations ended. Hernandez felt the only way to go to court was to file a class action lawsuit to claim that the women's right to have babies was denied. She later became the President of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and is now the CEO of the California Community Foundation.

Nancy Menzies Vaessen: Doctor's Defense attorney. Was able to file a motion that dismissed Dr. Quilligan and Dr. Roger Freeman from the case for not having direct responsibility and not being present during the sterilizations. "You have to look at what the facts are....that's why documentation is so important"

Charles Nabarrete: A graduate of UCLA law school, Nabarrete was the lead attorney for the Madrigal case.

Jovit Rivera: Plaintiff. Rivera believed that the ruling showed that nothing harmful transpired.

Hon. Jesse Curtis, Jr.: The federal judge that decided the outcome of Madrigal vs. Quilligan. He found the defendants not guilty and that "the cultural background of these particular women has contributed to the problem" of the sterilizations taking place.

Doctors
Dr. Edward James Quilligan: The County hospital obstetrician who was regarded a pioneer in the field of maternal fetal medicine. During the time of the sterilizations and the trial, Quilligan was the head of the Women's Hospital at LAC+USC Medical Center after coming from Yale. As the main defendant in the Madrigal trial, he claimed he was unaware of the multiple accounts of forced sterilization that took place in USC. He denied pushing for family planning on any specific group. "If you see a patient for the first time who is in labor who has a large number of children and one of the things you discuss with her is the possibility of tubal ligation, I think it's perfectly appropriate"

Dr. Bernard Rosenfeld: Early into his residency, Dr. Rosenfeld was suspicious of the forced sterilizations by tubal ligation. Rosenfeld chose to speak out and collected files on the sterilizations, despite being ignored by many of his colleagues. Every day he would type letters explaining what was going on in USC in order to keep a record. Rosenfeld would also record conversations between himself and other doctors, some having a stereotypical view of the Latinx community. He complained to Quilligan at least three times, but the sterilizations continued. He provided evidence against the hospital to Nabarette and Hernandez. As the whistleblower, Rosenfeld was let go and ostracized by the hospital. The hospital tried to revoke his license by claiming he leaked hospital information to a third party. "He could've stopped the problem completely.....but it kept happening" "No private doctor would ever go up to a woman in a private hospital while she was in labor about having her tubes tied"

Dr. Karen Benker: An obstetric technician conducting rounds at USC during the times of the sterilizations from 1967 to 1971. During her time there, she was exposed to the prejudices towards the sterilizations of minority women by the staff. She described an instance where, while on an obstetrics rotation, Dr. Quilligan took the doctors on a tour and declared that the hospital had gotten a grant to see how far they could cut minority populations.

Dr. Jerry Neuman: A former medical student at USC hospital. When he first came to LA, he was not familiar with Latinx culture at all. After an hour long orientation, he was sent out to start his work in the hospital without substantial training. As a defendant in the Madrigal vs. Quilligan case, Neumann believed he did nothing wrong, and did not coerce the defendants in question. He claimed it was "horrible to have your name splashed on the front page of the LA Times, having headlines questioning your motives.

Dr. Howard Blanchette A former medical student that was at USC during the sterilization incidents

Dr. Michael Kreitzer A former medical student at USC and defendant in Madrigal vs. Quilligan. He was offended by the idea that the sterilizations they performed were aimed at Latinx women who were thought to be unable to take care of their kids. He retorted, "Nothing could be further from the truth"

Professors
Professor Elena Gutierrez: An Associate Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies Program and Gender Studies & Women's Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In the film, she discussed the message of the infamous book, The Population Bomb by Stanford University Professor Paul R. Ehrlich. She describes the book as a call to having so many births.

Professor Alexandra Stern A historian from the University of Michigan's American Culture department. Provided history on the concept and reasonings behind the major push for family planning in the '70s in the United States.

Professor Carlos Velez-Ibanez An expert witness and anthropologist that graduated from UCLA and is currently the Regents Professor of the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University. He conducted several interviews for Hernandez and Nabarette. He had received a call from Hernandez about what the effects of sterilization would have on the women, and Ibanez responded that they would be serious. Ibanez claims that the judge used him during the trial to justify the reasoning that the doctors would not have known about the effects of sterilization on if it took him, an anthropologist, 6 months to figure it out.

Activists
Gloria Molina: Molina was a legal secretary and president of Comisión Femenil Mexicana Nacional when the nascent feminist organization signed on as class representatives for the lawsuit. She oversaw the reform and reconstruction at LAC+USC. She would go on to have a successful career in politics.

Journalists
Claudia Dreifus: A journalist that provided historical context for the documentary. She described that during the time of the trial, women were strongly beginning to ask about their reproductive rights, but people were not considering coerced sterilization. She also interviewed Dr. Quilligan and described him as not understanding what was moderately problematic about the sterilizations. "He felt that him or those under him did anything wrong"

Frank Cruz: Cruz was the only TV reporter that covered the Madrigal v. Quilligan trial as the first Latinx anchor on the Los Angeles television news. Before television, he taught Chicano history. He is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of USC.

Impact of Sterilizations
Some of the women felt as if the sterilizations had ended their lives and their husbands would leave them, because they were no longer "women". When Antonia Hernandez interviewed/talked to the mothers, the subject would be changed when the husband was present. They would then tell Hernandez not to bring up the subject again. The women would be coerced into signing the paper by phrases such as, "Want the shot to take away the pain? Sign, no más dolor". "You better sign those paper, or your baby could probably die here."

Family planning
Family planning was a major push in the '70s to control population growth and supply, especially minority women, access to health services that they previously did not have before. Large sums of money came through the government to promote the plan. Public institutions were allowed to apply for money from federal programs. Because the flow of money was not controlled, it led to the problems around coerced sterilization of minorities in hospitals. There were many rushed labors in the hospital and women would sign consensus forms for tubal ligation without reading the document. Women would go to the county hospitals to give birth, with some of them leaving sterilized without their knowledge. Using the phrase "tying of the tubes" misinformed people believing that tubes could become untied. They did not know that their tubes were ultimately cut.

Madrigal vs. Quilligan: important details from the film

 * Built under Roe v. Wade.
 * The women who signed on as plaintiffs agreed that their stories would go public for the first time
 * Took a year and a half to prepare the case
 * Described as Goliath versus David
 * California had one of highest sterilization rates, if not the highest
 * June 1971–March 1974, coercive sterilization
 * Cased filed in 1975 by 10 Chicana women (Plaintiffs)
 * Defendants: Dr. Quilligan and obstetricians at USC
 * Decision made on June 7, 1978 (Central District of California)
 * Affirmed by the Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit
 * Federal class-action suit
 * Case not subject to a jury
 * Wanted compensation, sterilization counseling, and consent forms in Spanish
 * Doctors accused of having intention to lower birth rate of Mexican women in California, controlling populations
 * Violation of civil and constitutional rights to bear children
 * Ruling, judge sided with hospital: no deliberate intent of the doctors to hurt the women.
 * Women unknowingly signed the paperwork in exchange to receive pain medication after giving birth. Others were also told that the process could be reversed, told that "tubes would be tied"
 * Women were working class, independent of government assistance
 * Case was prompted during the Chicana movement, which clashed with the chicano and women's liberation movement. Because the Chicano movement was led by men who had a very sexist approach, they say the needs of the women only secondary to ending racism. In regards to the Women's liberation movement, while chicanas wanted to have truly informed consent with a waiting period, white feminists opposed this. Instead, they wanted consent straight away. They did not take into account whether the individual could speak English, and could fully comprehend the purpose of a sterilization.

Outcome

 * "Changed way things have been done"
 * Forms in different languages, including Spanish made available
 * Patients under the age of 21 would have 72 hours to make decision
 * Welfare benefits would not be revoked
 * Minorities better informed of their rights regarding sterilization
 * Establishment of MALDEF CRP in 1974.
 * Bilingual counselors provided at county hospitals

Sterilization in California

 * Conducted the most sterilizations in the United States
 * Responsible for at least a quarter of the coerced sterilizations in USA
 * Passed sterilization law in 1909 and was unopposed for next 70 years
 * In total, 3 laws were passed in California concerning sterilization
 * Mexicans were specifically targeted, because it was stereotypically thought that they were diseased and carried tuberculosis
 * Fueled by immigration anxiety
 * Targeted by the traditional idea of large Mexican American families
 * Sterilization legislation used by Nazi Germany
 * Eugenics was seen as a way to protect society from the offspring of those deemed inferior
 * Performed 20,000 sterilizations, one-third of those in the nation, 1900s–1970s
 * Leader in eugenics movement
 * Pacific colony, feeble-mindedness
 * Sterilization bill granted superintendents to asexualize would improve inmate or patient physically, mentally, or morally
 * Family planning services and population research act, "birth curb bill" passed. Funding for sterilizations

Production
Co-Production of Moon Canyon Films, and the Independent Television Service (ITVS), in association with Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB) with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), and Chicken & Egg Pictures. Executive Producer for LPB – Sandra Pedlow. Executive Producer for ITVS - Sally Jo Fifer.

Awards and nominations

 * Nalip Opening Film 2015
 * Official Selection DOC NYC 2015
 * Official Selection 2015 Ambulante Documentary Film Festival
 * Official Selection Austin Film Festival 2015

First Article: Your Silence Will Not Protect You [Published to article]
Your Silence Will Not Protect You is a 2017 posthumous collection of essays, speeches, and poems by African American author and poet Audre Lorde. It is the first time a British publisher collected Lorde's work into one volume. The collection focuses on key themes such as: shifting language into action, silence as a form of violence, and the importance of history. Lorde describes herself as a "Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet", and addresses the difficulties in communication between Black and white women.

The collection is made up of five sections. A preface by Reni Eddo-Lodge, an introduction by Sara Ahmed, 13 essays, and 17 poems, and a Note on the Text. As the Note on the Text states, many of the essays in the collection were given at papers at conferences across the U.S. Further, Lorde often revised early poems and re-published them, so many of the poems in this collection are the latest versions of Lorde's work.

Background
Your Silence Will Not Protect You was published posthumously in order to bring together Lorde's essential poetry, speeches, and essays, into one volume for the first time. As Silver Press states, "Her extraordinary belief in the power of language – of speaking – to articulate selfhood, confront injustice and bring about change in the world remains as transformative today as it was then, and no less urgent".

Title
"Your Silence Will Not Protect You" is a quote from the first essay to appear in the collection, "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action". She states, "My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you". This references her belief in speaking for oneself and taking language into action.

Essays
In "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action", Lorde discussed various themes that recur throughout the book, including silence as a form of violence, shifting language into action, and the splintering of the feminist movement. She argued that using her voice to speak and connect with other women during her treatment gave her strength, "I am not a casualty, I am also a warrior".

"Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power", discussed how each person has both used and unused types of power. She speaks to the dichotomy of sexuality, and in particular how women have been suppressed from utilizing it's power. "We have been taught to suspect this resource, vilified, abused, and devalued within western society". She also argued that erotic connection can be used as a form of exploration for self-expression, "In touch with the erotic, I become less willing to accept powerlessness...such as resignation, despair, self-effacement, depression, self-denial".

"A Conversation between Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich" discussed different periods in Lorde's life, and her struggles with family, writing, and teaching. At one point, she discusses how Black women were sexually assaulted and harmed during times of revolution. She recalls, "And while we’d be trying to speak to them as women, all we’d hear is, ‘The revolution is here, right?’. Seeing how Black women were being used and abused was painful”. She also highlights the differences in protecting one's communities, "And this is what happens between Black men and women because we have perfected certain kinds of weapons that white women and men have not shared".

"The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House" is a commentary on a speech Lorde gave at The Second Sex Conference at New York University in 1978. She criticizes the lack of representation for "poor women, Black women, Third World Women, and lesbians", having been asked to speak at 'The Personal and the Political' panel. She argued that those who are poor, Black, older, lesbians, and the different intersections of these groups, have been made to stand alone and unpopular. She states, "For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change". Lorde called for recognition and representation of the differences between women, in an effort to fight inequality and survival.

Poems
In "Equinox" Lorde describes events in history which coincide with events in her life. She describes that the year her daughter was born was the same year W. E. B. Du Bois died, and the same year she marched into Washington. The same year John F. Kennedy fell off a roof, she describes how her house burnt down with no one in it, and the next day Malcolm X was shot dead. She reflects on how her children talk about "spring and peace" and she wonders if they'll ever fully understand the fighting that activists and Black communities have to do in order to survive. In "A Conversation between Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich" Lorde states, "That this was the most we could do, while we constructed some saner future. But that we were in that kind of peril. And here it was reality, in fact. Some of the poems-"Equinox" is one of them-come from then".

In "For Each Of You" Lorde reinforced the idea of being proud and speaking your mind, especially for the Black community. She tells people to "be proud of who you are and who you will be", and "speak proudly to your children wherever you may find them". According to a series of interviews conducted with Lorde, this poem "urges women, Black women specifically, to break through their silence because it is the only way to break through to each other".

"A Poem For Women in Rage", Lorde imagines a Black woman intending to kill a white woman waiting for her lesbian lover. Through fury and rage, Lorde confronts the issues between white and Black women and how, "I am weeping to learn the name of those streets my feet have worn thin with running and why they will never serve me". As a Black, lesbian, feminist, Lorde dealt with inequalities between how white and Black lesbians were treated in public spaces. She takes out this rage on this hypothetical person in the poem to exhibit her anger over such inequalities.

"Sister Outsider" is a poem that also happens to be a book by the same name by Lorde. Lorde compares how, "We were born poor in a time never touching each other's hunger" but that now, children are raised to respect themselves and each other. She argues that while accepting and acknowledging the best parts of oneself are important, it is equally important to recognize the dark parts as well.

Contents
This collection contains 13 essays and 17 poems, with the essays also including various speeches Lorde made.

Essays


 * "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action"
 * "Poetry Is Not a Luxury"
 * "Scratching the Surface: Some Notes on Barriers to Women and Loving"
 * Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power
 * "Sexism: An American Disease in Blackface"
 * "An Open Letter to Mary Daly"
 * "Man Child: A Black Lesbian Feminist's Response"
 * "A Conversation between Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich"
 * "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House"
 * "Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference"
 * "The Uses of Anger: Responding to Racism"
 * "Learning from the 1960s"
 * "Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred and Anger"

Poems
 * "Equinox"
 * "For Each of You"
 * "Good Mirrors Are Not Cheap"
 * "Black Mother Woman"
 * "Love Poem"
 * "Dear Toni"
 * "Separation"
 * "Blackstudies"
 * "Martha"
 * "A Litany for Survival"
 * "Power"
 * "School Note"
 * "Sister Outsider"
 * "Afterimages"
 * "A Poem for Women in Rage"
 * "Need: A Choral of Black Women's Voices"
 * "Outlines"