Latinas celebrate heritage, will help kick off reproductive justice tour
From Sept. 15 through Oct. 15, National Hispanic Heritage Month will teach people about history and contributions of famous Latino people. Reproductive justice intersects with it.
Latinas will celebrate their ancestors and predecessors for the coming few weeks as part of Latinx Heritage Month, which takes place between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15.
The biggest thing that will take place is the Joy and Justice Tour, a series of rallies across the country designed to increase voter turnout. The tour will celebrate the voices of Latinx, AAPI, Black, Youth, and Queer heroes embracing a future of inclusivity, equity, and justice and kick off with an event in Houston on September 28. It will travel to Richmond on Oct. 4, Orlando on Oct. 12, and Atlanta on Oct. 19.
Diana Salas, senior director of community engagement for the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, spoke about the events.
“The goal is to just highlight the work that we've been doing, especially grounded in the 30th anniversary of the reproductive justice movement,” Salas said. “So we're celebrating all of the work that we've done and championing the people that are doing this every single day.”
The late 1980s and early 1990s were pivotal years in forming what came to be known as the “reproductive justice framework.” That’s when feminists like Dixon Diallo, Loretta Ross, and Byllye Avery started talking about intersectionality, which is the concept that different intolerances and forms of discrimination converge to hurt women who belong to each respective group affected by those prejudices. Things like food and housing insecurity came to the fore. Infant mortality was also a significant issue. They didn’t have what they needed to deliver a healthy life for children.
In April 1989, the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, RCAR, and the Women of Color Partnership Program held a conference defending Roe v. Wade. The conference brought together Black, Latino, and Native American women, among others, to develop strategies to appeal to people beyond the traditional white feminist narrative. Reproductive Justice activist Loretta Ross called for a forward-looking movement.
Reproductive justice philosophy emerged between 1989 and 1994.
The Latina experience has been shaped by many of the same prejudices and discrimination faced by other women in the country. In California, they were subjected to sterilization abuse. Rosie Jimenez was a Latina woman who died in the 1970s after she was forced into getting a back alley abortion because Medicaid wouldn’t pay for a legal one. That galvanized a segment of the reproductive rights to fight for the Hyde Amendment’s repeal.
Though that history is worth learning and writing about, the Joy and Justice tour will focus on the achievements and contributions of great women of color throughout history.
“For me and for most of us, history has an interesting habit of repeating itself, right?” Salas said. “And so our communities have a long history of fighting for inclusion, of being ignored, of being harmed, of being targeted. And so that is not necessarily new., But we've always been grounded in that long legacy of resilience and resistance. And so, for us, it's about that time to remember that resilience, remember that resistance. And to actually change the future, we have to be engaged in the present.”