By Sandra De Anda, Guest Columnist
Since its inception, I binge-watched Orange is the New Black in my dorm with other students of color. The final season of OITNB is no different, save for the new setting introduced to viewers that isn’t solely Litchfield Penitentiary but a detention center that was included in the expansion of PolyCon Enterprises. This enterprise is supposed to represent real-world private corporations such as the GEO Group and CoreCivic that “approximately detain 15000 people in immigration detention per day,” according to detention statistics gathered by Freedom for Immigrants.
The new season depicts storylines tackling the nuances and complexities of many detained womxns’ experiences, including the crimmigration pipeline so familiar with in Orange County.
These days, there’s no escaping the oversaturation of news depicting the violence inflicted on immigrant communities. With this in mind, I viewed OITNB’s final season with an initial skepticism. Would these representations do justice for detained womxn? What does reproductive justice look like for detained womxn? What does watching this show do differently than a headline?
The answer came with the character of Santos-Chaj character played by Melinna Bobadilla.
Santos finds herself in a precarious situation when she and her husband attempt to cross into the United States from Guatemala in a lorry that is soon stopped by the men transporting them. The men demand additional payments to continue the journey onward, but the couple doesn’t have the money to pay up. One of the men looks at Santos and tells her there are other forms of payment, an allusion to rape that later arises with a subplot dealing with abortion.
When in the immigrant detention center, Santos’ desire for the procedure can’t be understood by anybody because no one speaks K’iche, an Indigenous Mayan language. Bobadilla breathed life into a character whose real-life counterparts are often overlooked by media outlets in conversations around migration. The actress felt a deep sense of responsibility in playing Santos.
“Her character exists where many real womxn exist in these intersections of oppression,” says Bobadilla. “I am still reflecting. There was much trepidation with this role, but I did my best to honor it. While visual mediums spark curiosity, it is just an introductory step to action.”
Santos’ character is of great importance because it shows us a representation of the intersection of reproductive justice and immigration. “There are men continuously making decisions over women’s bodies creating yet another barrier to health in detention,” says Bobadilla. That’s something that was highlighted by the media when a 17-year-old tried to have an abortion when placed under the care of Refugee Resettlement. The girl eventually had the procedure done and this past June, a U.S. Appeals court ruled, “that the US government cannot deny access to abortions for unaccompanied minors in federal custody.”
Having binged OITNB’s farewell season, the only thing left to do is to ask what and how do we aid these characters that are actually real people in need of real life solutions? At the moment many advocates are rallying around Assembly Bill 32, a policy that aims to eliminate private detention contracts and detention centers by 2020. Locally, the Orange County Justice Fund is raising money to bail out immigrant detainees and there’s also the Orange County Rapid Response Network that is onboarding new first responders.
Those are just a few things to do after devouring another OITNB season one last time.
Deport This! is a partnership between OC Weekly, Chispa and Orange County Immigrant Youth United. The column is a rebuttal of Donald Trump’s racist politics and his OC cheerleaders, who’ll no doubt get triggered every week with news and views by and about the undocumented community.
I thank Sandra De Anda for her article.
I don’t watch TV and have never seen “Orange Is the New Black.” However, I was very much taken with what she said about the immigrant detainee. I think our borders should be open, and that no one should be punished at all for seeking a new place to live, especially with all the impossible situations created, or contributed to, in other countries by our government. People should be welcomed here and given all the help they need. There’s plenty of room. It’s not a virtue to be born here, but it comes with responsibility.
On the term “reproductive healthcare,” bandied about by politicians, the term should apply, not just to abortion rights but the elimination of unnecessary hysterectomies. There’s another hysterectomy somewhere in this country every minute. 2/3 of all American women are hysterectomized by the age of 70, and more than 22,000,000 American women are living with the results. Almost always, this surgery is unnecessary; either there’s alternate treatment available that preserves the uterus and ovaries, or no treatment is necessary at all. This all arises from an arrangement doctors have with insurance companies, so that hysterectomies—which may take only 20 minutes—incur the same fee as conservative surgery, which preserves the uterus and ovaries but may take hours and require more skill. On surgery day, a gynecologist can perform a hysterectomy every hour, performing 4, 5 or 6 hysterectomies or even more in that day. Doctors push hysterectomies, telling women their uteri and ovaries are needed only for having children. This is a lie.
I. too, was pushed to have a hysterectomy by numerous doctors, for a serious fibroid problem. Instead I had a myomectomy, to remove the fibroids, and it was a success, but I was hounded by the surgeon for an extra large fee not fully covered by insurance.
A woman NEEDS her uterus and ovaries her entire life, for many reasons. They are an essential health maintenance facility and are not spare parts. We need legislation to force doctors to tell the truth about what women really need, not for the doctors’ convenience and financial gain.
For more information, and a list of results and risks of hysterectomy, please see http://www.hersfoindation.org.
This needs to be part of the conversation. All women should know it. Politicians and women’s groups have been avoiding the issue.