Not a Monolith is a Teen Vogue series for Latinx Heritage Month 2023, highlighting the diversity of those in the Latinx community. From disability rights activists to rappers to drag queens, we're showing the range of not just backgrounds, but experiences that inform Latinx culture today. In this op-ed, Laura Ramirez, community engagement manager at Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, links immigration and reproductive rights. Click here to read this article in Spanish.
Hispanic Heritage Month is a time in which we celebrate and commemorate the histories, cultures, and contributions of those whose ancestors came from Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America — and how we’ve shaped U.S. culture for the better. But as more Latine people migrate to the United States looking for a better future, it becomes increasingly difficult to celebrate our cultures without confronting the compounding injustices that jeopardize the physical health and mental wellness of our families and communities.
As a first-generation immigrant, I’m deeply aware of these injustices. I was born and raised in a rural town in Puebla, Mexico, and migrated to New York with my parents when I was ten years old. Growing up in my small town, I recognized from an early age that there were many ways women in my family didn’t necessarily have control over their own bodies and didn’t have access to needed care. Without fully realizing it, it was during those years that I discovered my passion for sexual and reproductive healthcare, which, as an adult, has led me to commit myself to reproductive justice centered around comprehensive, quality care that responds to the needs of my Latine communities.
In the past few years, we’ve watched as politicians dehumanize immigrants by using us as political pawns and as they make decisions that impact us in an outsized way, seemingly without considering our communities. In fact, the Washington Post reports that a 2022 report found that Latinas were likely to be disproportionately impacted by the overturn of Roe v. Wade, with millions of vulnerable people of childbearing age living in states that would go on to ban or severely restrict abortion. This is a classic example of how Latine people are too often robbed of our right to bodily autonomy and free will to make informed, healthy decisions about our own lives.
Immigrants deserve to live healthy lives with access to quality healthcare, parent our children with dignity, and live in healthy environments that honor our autonomy. To strip us of our right to abortion is to attack our very ownership of our bodies. Immigrant rights are reproductive rights, and immigrant justice is reproductive justice.
This Hispanic Heritage Month is an opportunity for all of us to examine immigrant rights through this lens. Reproductive justice is the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities. Immigrant families who seek asylum are inherently seeking reproductive justice, but in a country that’s increasingly withdrawing the right to bodily autonomy, on top of a long history of reproductive injustice against Black and brown people, they’re instead finding a renewed cycle of white supremacy that has long harmed both Latine and all immigrant communities in this country.
The denial of reproductive justice for Latine communities has cascading consequences that make the migrant crisis that much more urgent to address. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Latinas suffer from higher rates of cervical cancer compared to white women, and out of the 1.2 million people (about the population of New Hampshire) with HIV in this country, 25% are Hispanic/Latino, and 35% of Hispanic/Latina transgender women have HIV. Social determinants like language barriers or immigration status often limit our communities' access to life-saving cervical cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment, HIV testing, HPV vaccines, as well as the full range of birth control options.
When the reality faced by Latine and migrant communities is so dire, it can be difficult to celebrate the beautiful parts of our cultures. In moments like this, it’s imperative that we uplift the types of movements, legislation, and grassroots efforts that directly deal with these issues. We can draw inspiration from immigration champions like Massachusetts Governor Maura Healy, who addressed this crisis with the urgency it deserves and earlier this summer declared a state of emergency, asking the federal government to make it easier for asylum seekers to obtain work permits. Helping immigrants access jobs means more access to healthcare, money for transportation, and, therefore, the ability to access reproductive health services. Just like New York, Massachusetts is one of several states grappling with an influx of migrants, yet it's the only state with a comprehensive right-to-shelter law – a law that also exists here in New York City, but that keeps getting tweaked as more migrants arrive in our state.
As someone who is deeply involved with my Latine community, I'm proud to work at an organization like Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, where I can fight for health equity for my community through grassroots programs and initiatives like Raiz, which is dedicated to breaking down barriers in accessing healthcare in the Latine community, or Promotores de Salud, a program modeled on Mexican and Central American adult peer education programs that brings bilingual reproductive health education and information into Latine homes and community-gathering locations.
This Hispanic Heritage Month, we demand reproductive justice and health equity for Latine immigrants and community members at all levels of government — we need our local leaders to make a commitment to fight for social justice, racial justice, reproductive justice, LGBTQ justice, and, most of all, immigrant justice by passing the Coverage for All bill, which would expand New York State’s essential medical plan to include individuals under 65 who are not eligible for insurance due to their immigration status.
Planned Parenthood of Greater New York’s involvement with the Latine community is seen not only through our many grassroots initiatives, but through ongoing and long-term efforts to expand equitable access to sexual and reproductive health care and education, a commitment to defending the fundamental human rights of Latine people, and community partnerships and coalition with New York based organizations working for the same goals. Below, you can find a list of partner organizations that are working to support and uplift issues currently affecting Latine and immigrant communities:
- City resources and support services
- Latina Institute
- Brooklyn Public Library
- Bronx Re-Birth
- NYC Immigration Coalition
- Central Family Life Center
