Los remedios de mi abuela y la bruja. An analysis of intergenerational reproductive health knowledge by Latinx immigrant women

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Wednesday V)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Mapping pedagogies of hope and resistance in a borderless future

Proposal

Latinx immigrant women carry intergenerational knowledge with them across borders, communities, and spaces. While some research has been done on traditional medicine, home remedies, and other healing practices, a particular focus on reproductive health and the ways in which Latinx immigrant women transfer and share that information has not received as much attention. If the barriers to reproductive health resources faced by Latinx immigrant women, including language, insurance, transportation and poverty (Valdez, 2003; Guendelman, 2011; Ku and Jewers, 2013) are considered, there is reason to believe that many immigrant women are not engaging with mainstream reproductive health systems. So then how is it that Latinx immigrant women have created their own spaces for reproductive health practices and knowledge? Some healing specializations in the community include yerberas/os (herbalists), sobadoras/es (masseuses), espiritualistas (mediums), and señoras/es (card readers), as well as the umbrella term curanderas/os (Avila, 2000; de la Torre and Estrada, 2015; Padilla et al. 2012; Favazza Titus, 2014; Tafur et al. 2009; Trotter and Chavira, 1997) and of course, brujas, female practitioners of spiritual, sexual, and healing knowledges (Lara, 2005). Through a postcolonial feminist framework and in the context of the contemporary health system’s precarity, the purpose of this study is to acknowledge and explore the complexity of Latinx immigrant women’s reproductive health and wellbeing. It is urgent for scholars to take into account this knowledge –that might not be traditionally labeled as reproductive health or health knowledge– in order to prevent its loss when confronted by the dominant narratives more readily available in hegemonic Anglo European thought. Furthermore, this intergenerational education and reproductive knowledge have the potential to influence the reproductive justice movements of today.

Author

• Alicia Serna Frausto, University of Pennsylvania