As part of the Latina/o Heritage Month program at Baruch, the Omicron Chapter of The Senoritas Latinas Unidas Sorority, Inc. presented a screening of La Operación (The Operation). The film, produced and directed by Ana Maria Garcia, is a fascinating look at the systematic sterilization of Puerto Rican women by their government, often without their knowledge.
The forty-minute documentary explores how sterilization was a government-sponsored method-not only of population control-but also economic reform. Beginning in the 1930's and well into the 1980's, the Puerto Rican government, with the full knowledge and blessing of the U.S., began a systematic program called Operation Bootstrap. Aimed primarily at low-income women, the plan was designed to keep poverty at bay.
Puerto Rico was undergoing a transformation - moving from an agrarian economy to an industrial society. During wartime, large factories employed women, particularly in needlecraft industries. Where a farming culture could sustain larger families, it was felt that a modern, industrial society could not. The government instituted a plan that paid for the widespread tubal ligation of women.
Vanessa Gonzalez, President of the graduate chapter of the sorority, quoted her mother, who grew up in Puerto Rico, who said, "Women were having children at alarming rates." Gonzalez said her grandmother had ten children, one great aunt had eleven and yet another had eighteen children. One student in the audience said both of her grandmothers had twelve children. Gonzalez's grandmother, who still lives in Puerto Rico, confirmed that a majority of the women there cannot have children. Both her grandmother and mother say that women were given birth control before it was approved in the US.
A woman in the film said men feel they lose their "energy" if they are sterilized. "And you know what that 'energy' means," she said. After the film, Xinia Bermudez, President of the Sorority, said that the machismo Latino culture was a big factor in why the program was aimed solely at women. "If you take away the ability to have kids, it's like taking away a piece of their soul. It essentially takes away their manhood," she said.
The film ran through startling statistics. In 1936, 6.5 percent of Puerto Rican women had been sterilized. By 1953, 20 percent of women had the operation. By 1980, one-third of the women on the island had been sterilized. Sterilization was not only provided by government clinics, but also by factories where women provided cheap labor for overseas corporations. Rather than pay women maternity leave and benefits, factories did the calculations and found by providing operations they would save millions.
Often, women were not even told what kind of surgery they were having. Some women thought it would easily be reversed. In fact, very few tubal ligations can be successfully reversed. If they are, pregnancies are usually dangerous, and in some cases, fatal to both the fetus and the mother. Even more disturbing than the high rates of sterilization were the birth control products that were freely distributed to the population. Women in the film recall a nurse coming to their homes and providing birth control pills. They were assured it was a good product. Those pills, 20 times stronger than medication legally available today, caused women to pass out after ingested.
Students were struck by the widespread implications of the sterilization policy. One student summed it up well and said, "They would rather fund a quick fix than fund education."
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