Voices of the Latina Institute: Sharing the same herstory: Latinas in the US and abroad

Jersey Garcia, Member of Miami International Latinas Organizing for Leadership and Advocacy (MI-LOLA)

Being an Afro-Latina and first generation Dominican American, I grew up knowing that many of the same reproductive justice issues affecting Latinas outside of the USA continue to plague their peers in the states. Poverty, lack of resources, violence, and no access to services or information are some of the issues that women continue to face here and abroad.
As the granddaughter of a poor, illiterate black woman living in a rural village in Dominican Republic, I know first hand what it is to not have choices or the resources to exercise our intrinsic right to sexual and reproductive health. My grandmother had 22 pregnancies, three miscarriages and two of her children did not reach the age of five. She never received prenatal care or contraceptives–and she never received information about her body or reproductive health.
My grandmother was a wise healer; she used plants and herbs to cure ailments from those who requested her help. But she did not know how to prevent pregnancy and was helpless under my grandfather’s sexual and emotional abuse. My mom and aunts eventually learned how to prevent pregnancies when they arrived in the US, but they still lacked access to reproductive health services, as well as resources and sex education to make informed choices. Some had unplanned pregnancies, and several, including my mom, had to undergo a hysterectomy at an early age.
At the end of the continuum are the granddaughters, who, because of to the lack of accurate sexual health education, at home or in school, were left with limited choices about their sexual and reproductive rights. Several of my cousins became pregnant as teenagers, and one almost died after attempting to self-induce an abortion by overdosing on misoprostol.
I joined the Peace Corps at the age of 23, and served as a Health Volunteer in rural Honduras. I provided sexual and reproductive health information to adolescents and adults. One day as I opened a sex education book to gather information for my first training, I finally learned why I got my period every month. I began to see the patterns of my life choices around reproductive health, as well as those made by my grandmother, mother, aunt, cousins, and the many women I met in Honduras. I realized in that moment that I needed to break the cycle and make sure that herstory did not repeat itself.
I am an educator and advocate for sexual and reproductive health rights because I want all our grandmothers, daughters, aunts, sisters, and cousins in the USA and abroad to live empowered lives, that are not limited by lack of access to resources, services or information, but that are full of unlimited potential