Fighting for Control: Power, Reproductive Care, and Race in the US-Mexico Borderlands

by Lina-Maria Murillo

Overview

The first birth control clinic in El Paso, Texas, opened in 1937. Since then, Mexican-origin women living in the border cities of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez have confronted various interest groups determined to control their reproductive lives, including a heavily funded international population control campaign led by Planned Parenthood Federation of America as well as the Catholic Church and Mexican American activists. Uncovering nearly one hundred years of struggle, Lina-Maria Murillo reveals how Mexican-origin women on both sides of the border fought to reclaim autonomy and care for themselves and their communities.

Faced with a family planning movement steeped in eugenic ideology, working-class Mexican-origin women strategically demanded additional health services and then formed their own clinics to provide care on their own terms. Along the way, they developed what Murillo calls reproductive care— quotidian acts of community solidarity—as activists organized for better housing, education, wages, as well as access to birth control, abortion, and more. Centering the agency of these women and communities, Murillo lays bare Mexican-origin women’s long battle for human dignity and power in the borderlands as reproductive freedom in Texas once again hangs in the balance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469682594
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	01/07/2025
Series:	Justice, Power, and Politics
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Lina-Maria Murillo is assistant professor of gender, women, and sexuality studies, history, and Latina/o/x studies at the University of Iowa.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A groundbreaking and foundational history of Mexican-origin women in the borderlands. Lina-Maria Murillo’s eloquently written and meticulously researched book brings to light this overlooked and marginalized story.”—Miroslava Chávez-García, author of Migrant Longing: Letter Writing across the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

“Fusing feminist theory, archival sleuthing, and compelling storytelling, Lina-Maria Murillo has crafted an unparalleled history of women’s reproductive health care in the US-Mexico borderlands. By turns heartbreaking and inspiring, Fighting for Control will be discussed for decades to come.”—Vicki L. Ruiz, author of From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America

“A fresh analysis and critical, transnational perspective on the xenophobic discourses, practices, and worries about Mexican women’s fertility that emerged in the late twentieth century. This book powerfully illustrates the quotidian expressions of compassion, nurturing, and information-sharing that enabled these Mexican women and activists to live in dignity.”—Patricia Zavella, author of The Movement for Reproductive Justice: Empowering Women of Color through Social Activism

“Fighting for Control is a revelation and rewrites the history of birth control in America as we know it. Along the US-Mexico border, in the face of unrelenting eugenic feminism, Mexican-origin women innovated a reproductive justice framework long before a reproductive rights one took root.”—Jennifer L. Holland, author of Tiny You: A Western History of the Anti-Abortion Movement

“Fighting for Control is a riveting narrative that manages to be both sweeping and exquisitely detailed. Murillo brilliantly mobilizes the concept of reproductive care to show how Mexican-origin women navigated the constraints of eugenics, population control, poverty, and injustice across the long twentieth century.”—Alexandra Minna Stern, author of Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America

“Murillo deftly exposes the racist population control ideology that undergirded family planning efforts in the US-Mexico borderlands and how Mexican-origin women claimed their reproductive autonomy. Necessary for anyone engaged in the continued struggle for reproductive justice.”—Natalie Lira, author of Laboratory of Deficiency: Sterilization and Confinement in California, 1910–1950s

Editorial Reviews

“A groundbreaking and foundational history of Mexican-origin women in the borderlands. Lina-Maria Murillo’s eloquently written and meticulously researched book brings to light this overlooked and marginalized story.”—Miroslava Chávez-García, author of Migrant Longing: Letter Writing across the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

“Fusing feminist theory, archival sleuthing, and compelling storytelling, Lina-Maria Murillo has crafted an unparalleled history of women’s reproductive health care in the US-Mexico borderlands. By turns heartbreaking and inspiring, Fighting for Control will be discussed for decades to come.”—Vicki L. Ruiz, author of From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America

“A fresh analysis and critical, transnational perspective on the xenophobic discourses, practices, and worries about Mexican women’s fertility that emerged in the late twentieth century. This book powerfully illustrates the quotidian expressions of compassion, nurturing, and information-sharing that enabled these Mexican women and activists to live in dignity.”—Patricia Zavella, author of The Movement for Reproductive Justice: Empowering Women of Color through Social Activism

“Fighting for Control is a revelation and rewrites the history of birth control in America as we know it. Along the US-Mexico border, in the face of unrelenting eugenic feminism, Mexican-origin women innovated a reproductive justice framework long before a reproductive rights one took root.”—Jennifer L. Holland, author of Tiny You: A Western History of the Anti-Abortion Movement

“Fighting for Control is a riveting narrative that manages to be both sweeping and exquisitely detailed. Murillo brilliantly mobilizes the concept of reproductive care to show how Mexican-origin women navigated the constraints of eugenics, population control, poverty, and injustice across the long twentieth century.”—Alexandra Minna Stern, author of Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America

“Murillo deftly exposes the racist population control ideology that undergirded family planning efforts in the US-Mexico borderlands and how Mexican-origin women claimed their reproductive autonomy. Necessary for anyone engaged in the continued struggle for reproductive justice.”—Natalie Lira, author of Laboratory of Deficiency: Sterilization and Confinement in California, 1910–1950s

From the Publisher