No Más Bebés is the story of Mexican immigrant mothers who sued county doctors, the state, and the U.S. government after they were sterilized while giving birth at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center during the 1970s. Alongside an intrepid, 26-year-old Chicana lawyer and armed with hospital records secretly gathered by a whistle- blowing young doctor, the mothers stood up to powerful institutions in the name of justice. This year marks the 40th anniversary of their landmark civil rights lawsuit, Madrigal v. Quilligan, asserting that a woman’s right to bear a child is protected by the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.
Virginia Espino is a native daughter of California, born and raised in northeastern Los Angeles. She is a lecturer of Chicana and Chicano Studies and Working Class history at UCLA and serves on the Board of the California Latinas for Reproductive Justice and the Southwest Oral History Association. Her passion is recovering lost or hidden histories through the oral tradition and making them available to the public at large. Her essays have been published in the Chicano Studies Journal, Aztlán and you can find her collection of oral history interviews at UCLA’s Center for Oral History Research where she spent 6 years documenting Los Angeles’ historic Chicana and Chicano community. She is the recipient of the John V. Mink Award for her work in oral history and her collaboration on the award wining documentary film, No Más Bebés/No More Babies for which she is a Producer and Lead Historian. Based in part on her dissertation research, No Más Bebés/No More Babies investigates the history of coercive sterilization at the Los Angeles-USC Medical Center during the 1970s.
Consuelo Hermosillo was born in Mexico, and found herself living in the United States as a teen. She met her husband Prospero Hermosillo in Los Angeles and they immediately fell in love. The couple celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this year. Consuelo is the mother of three children and grandmother to five. She has spent most of her life balancing motherhood, family and work; providing for the family economy while maintaining the home. She has owned several restaurants in partnership with her husband, and is the current Executive Chef for her son Oscar Hermosillo’s restaurant empire. In her spare time she enjoys traveling, listening to Son Jarocho and helping those in need.
This event is made possible with support from the Media Arts & Culture Department and the Remsen Bird Fund.
