Fighting for Control

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

For more information about Lina-Maria Murillo, visit the Author Page.

"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