Intersections at the Border: Immigration, Enforcement, Reproductive Oppression, and the Policing of Latina Bodies in the Rio Grande Valley

This article identifies factors contributing to the marginalization of Latina women in the Rio Grande Valley. Specifically, the author discusses how immigration enforcement works as a mechanism of racial control and reproductive oppression as a tool of gender subordination. Although American governance has been characterized by neoliberal policies, conditions of inequality and disadvantage make Latina women especially vulnerable. Threats of coercive detention and deportation, as well as the minimal reproductive health safety net, operate in conjunction to police and punish the bodies of immigrant Latinas. These negative outcomes are exacerbated by the 'matrix of domination', where intersecting systems of oppression discipline the lives of oppressed populations. The 'intersectional failure' to prevent the rise of neoliberal policies is attributed to an advocacy gap between the feminist and Chicano/a-rights movements, as well as a doctrinal failure to consider full social and structural realities of affected populations.