GOOD TALK WITH VIRGINIA ESPINO
Lead Historian & Producer of NO MÁS BEBÉS
Virginia Espino is the daughter of Mexican parents. She grew up in the barrios of northeastern Los Angeles where she currently resides. She holds a PhD in 20th Century U.S. History with a focus on the Chicanx experience from Arizona State University. She is an oral and public historian whose research interests include the intersection of class, race, and gender in working class culture and identity formation. Much of her work over the past 10 years includes the recovery of lost or hidden histories through the practice of oral history interviewing, processing, and making those histories available to the public at large. Espino is the Producer and Lead Historian on the award winning documentary, NO MÁS BEBÉS. Based in part on her dissertation research, NO MÁS BEBÉS investigates the history of coercive sterilization at the Los Angeles-USC Medical Center during the 1970s. Her research was published in Las Obreras: Chicana Politics of Work and Family, edited by Vicki L. Ruiz, and the Chicanx journal, Aztlán. She currently lectures for Chicana, Chicano and Central American Studies and Labor Studies at UCLA and serves on the board of the California Latinas for Reproductive Justice.