This collection includes court records from the 1970's federal class action lawsuit, Madrigal v. Quilligan, which brought to light the coerced sterilization of Latina women at Los Angeles County-University of Southern California Medical Center. The case was brought to court by 10 Latina women against E.J. Quilligan, M.D. and other hospital obstetricians. The court records span from June 1975 through April 1979. The judge ruled against the women, however the case increased public awareness and activism of forced sterilization to minority and non-native speaking women. The records were collected from the National Archives at Riverside for use in the documentary, No Mas Bebes Por Vida, and for a forthcoming digital archive.

Virginia Espino, earned her Ph.D. in history at Arizona State University. She currently works as an oral historian at the University of California at Los Angeles Center for Oral History Research where she is responsible for coordinating projects that document the Southern California Latina/o community. She is responsible for launching two oral history series that explore the Long Civil Rights Movement in Los Angeles: Mexican American Civil Rights Pioneers: Historical Roots of an Activist Generation and "La Batalla Está Aquí": The Chicano Movement in Los Angeles. Her research on the history of coercive sterilization at the Los Angeles-USC Medical Center provided the impetus for the documentary, No Más Hijos Por Vida/More Babies for Life, for which she is a Producer and Lead Historian. Espino has conducted extensive primary research and interviews with a number of the principals in the case, and has published her research in Las Obreras: Chicana Politics of Work and Family, edited by Vicki L. Ruiz, and Latinas in the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia.

2 linear feet

Copyright has not been assigned to the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center. These court documents are public record.

Open for research.