Fertility And Reproduction By Chavez Summary

Latina Sexuality, Fertility and Reproduction.
When the U.S. population had reached a record, the 300 millionth person to be born, news reports and the media started to clamor. How with the “major” help of the Latinas did this come to happen (Chavez 70)? It is evident that we need to look deeper into how this data is represented in the U.S. and realize that these representations are not always accurate. A myth is more than a made up story, it can be the topic of what we represent to believe true. “Latina sexuality, fertility, and reproduction are analyzed as key intertwined concepts in a national public discourse on immigration (Chavez 73).” This story is way more convoluted than we are told to accept as true. In general, it may be true that
When it comes to advertising, reporting and the media, those are the sources that have engrained a sense of prejudice to Latina community. As Chavez states, “Such reporting underscored Latina fertility and immigration as key components of population growth and other demographic changes” (71). Latina reproduction isn’t merely perceived as a threat because of population growth but it is considered a threat because it disobeys the invisible line between immigrants and citizens. This grey area is a burning issue when it comes to politics because a majority of the time the mother is an undocumented immigrant (Chavez, 72). It is often believe that Latinas, “Come here, have their babies, and after that they become citizens and all those children use social services (Chavez, 72). In doing so, many believe they become “anchor babies.” It is true that our
To start, almost all women no matter what racial or ethnic group they belonged to want one or two children and that’s a preference that runs through. Next, there have been documented fertility trends that show a striking decrease in the amount of children Mexican-origin born. The drop is credited to the shifting beliefs about marriage, the access to education, the more prominent use to contraceptives and the delay of having children and spacing the time between births (Chaves 94). Also, Latina girls in a study had lower rates of sexual activity than non-Latina girls, which were recognized by Latino cultural norms (Chavez 94). Furthermore, “Latina immigrants tended to be younger, had fewer years of education, were less likely to have medical insurance, and had lower incomes than both U.S.- born Latinas and white women thus the initial higher rates in reproduction (Chavez 98).” Moreover, contrasting a typical stereotype, on average all of the women waited until they were 20 or older to have their first child. Last but not least, based on cultural norms again, Latina immigrants were more likely to have had no more than 2 sexual partners where as white women were recorded to have 5 or 6 (Chavez