![[PDF]](/pb-assets/Icons/adobe-pdf-icon-1498649896243.png){kind=icon}
Abstract
This article examines the regulation of Latina youth sexualities in the context of sexual and reproductive health care provision. In-depth interviews with health care providers working in two Latino-serving community health centers are analyzed for how they interpret and respond to the sexual and reproductive practices of their low-income Latina teen patients. The author finds that providers emphasize teenage pregnancy as a social problem among this population to the exclusion of other dimensions of youth sexualities and encourage Latina girls’ adherence to a life course trajectory that conforms to middle-class, heteronormative ideals as a solution to this problem. By relying on such understandings, providers construct meanings of sexual citizenship that require participation in bourgeois heteronormativity. These findings suggest that Latino-serving community health centers, their providers, and their teen patients could benefit from questioning the assumptions that inform providers’ appraisals of Latina youth and developing a more inclusive approach to Latina youth sexualities beyond a discourse of pregnancy prevention. Such efforts could allow community health centers to actively participate in disrupting the structural inequalities that shape their young patients’ lives.
References
|
Arévalo, Sandra, Amaro, Hortensia. 2010. Sexual health of Latina/o populations in the United States. In Latina/o sexualities: Probing powers, passions, practices, and policies, edited by Asencio, M. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Arreola, Sonya Grant . 2010. Latina/o childhood sexuality. In Latina/o sexualities: Probing powers, passions, practices, and policies, edited by Asencio, M. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Asencio, Marysol . 2002. Sex and sexuality among New York’s Puerto Rican youth. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Google Scholar | |
|
Bell, David, Binnie, Jon. 2000. The sexual citizen: Queer politics and beyond. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Bettie, Julie . 2003. Women without class: Girls, race, and identity. Berkeley: University of California Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo . 2006. Racism without racists: Colorblind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States, 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Google Scholar | |
|
Brandzel, Amy L. 2005. Queering citizenship? Same-sex marriage and the state. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 11:171-204. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Bridges, Khiara . 2011. Reproducing race: An ethnography of pregnancy as a site of racialization. Berkeley: University of California Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Brubaker, Sarah Jane . 2007. Denied, embracing, and resisting medicalization: African American teen mothers’ perceptions of formal pregnancy and childbirth care. Gender & Society 21:528-52. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Butler, Judith . 1993. Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of “sex.” New York: Routledge. Google Scholar | |
|
Chavez, Leo R. 2008. The Latino threat: Constructing immigrants, citizens, and the nation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Clarke, Adele . 2005. Situational analysis: Grounded theory after the postmodern turn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Cocca, Carolyn . 2002. From “welfare queen” to “exploited teen”: Welfare dependency, statutory rape, and moral panic. NWSA Journal 14:56-79. Google Scholar | |
|
California HealthCare Foundation . 2012. Bootstrappers and mavericks: A framework for understanding what drives community clinics. California HealthCare Foundation. http://www.chcf.org/publications/2012/03/bootstrappers-and-mavericks. Google Scholar | |
|
Coontz, Stephanie . 2005. Marriage, a history: From obedience to intimacy or how love conquered marriage. New York: Viking. Google Scholar | |
|
Denner, Jill, Guzmán, Bianca L. 2006. Introduction: Latina girls transforming cultures, contexts, and selves. In Latina girls: Voices of adolescent strength in the United States, edited by Denner, J., Guzmán, B. L. New York: New York University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Duggan, Lisa . 2003. The twilight of equality? Neoliberalism, cultural policies, and the attack on democracy. Boston: Beacon Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Edin, Kathryn, Kefalas, M. 2005. Promises I can keep: Why poor women put motherhood before marriage. Berkeley: University of California Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Erickson, Pamela I. 1998. Latina adolescent childbearing in East Los Angeles. Austin: University of Texas Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Evans, David T. 1993. Sexual citizenship: The material construction of sexualities. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Ferguson, Roderick A. 2004. Aberrations in black: Toward a queer of color critique. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Fields, Jessica . 2008. Risky lessons: Sex education and social inequality. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Fields, Jessica, Hirschman, Celeste. 2007. Citizenship lessons in abstinence-only education. American Journal of Sexuality Education 2:3-25. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Fine, Michelle . 1988. Sexuality, schooling, and adolescent females: The missing discourse of desire. Harvard Educational Review 58:29-53. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Fine, Michelle, McClelland, Sara I. 2006. Sexuality education and desire: Still missing after all these years. Harvard Educational Review 76:297-338. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Frost, Jennifer J., Driscoll, Anne K. 2006. Sexual and reproductive health of U.S. Latinas: A literature review. Guttmacher Institute. http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/02/07/or19.pdf. Google Scholar | |
|
Furstenberg, Frank F. 2007. Destinies of the disadvantaged: The politics of teen childbearing. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Google Scholar | |
|
Garcia, Lorena . 2009. Now why do you want to know about that? Heteronormativity, racism, and sexism in the sexual (mis)education of Latina youth. Gender & Society 23:520-41. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Garcia, Lorena . 2012. Respect yourself, protect yourself: Latina girls and sexual identity. New York: New York University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Geronimus, Arline . 2003. Damned if you do: Culture, identity, privilege, and teenage childbearing in the United States. Social Science & Medicine 57:881-93. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI | |
|
González-López, Gloria . 2010. Heterosexuality exposed: Some feminist sociological reflections on heterosexual sex and romance in U.S. Latina/o communities. In Latina/o sexualities: Probing powers, passions, practices, and policies, edited by Asencio, M. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Greene, Saara . 2006. Becoming responsible: Young mothers’ decision-making regarding abortion and motherhood. Journal of Progressive Human Services 17:25-43. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Guzmán, Bianca L., Arruda, Elise, Feria, Aida L. 2006. Los papas, la familia y la sexualidad. In Latina girls: Voices of adolescent strength in the United States, edited by Denner, J., Guzmán, B. L. New York: New York University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Harris, Anita . 2004. Future girl: Young women in the 21st century. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Harris, Anita . 2005. Discourses of desire as governmentality: Young women, sexuality and the significance of safe space. Feminism & Psychology 15:39-42. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Hurtado, Aída . 2003. Voicing Chicana feminisms: Young women speak out on sexuality and identity. New York: New York University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Jaworski, Adam, Coupland, Nikolas, eds. 1999. The discourse reader. London: Routledge Google Scholar | |
|
Joffe, Carole . 1986. The regulation of sexuality: Experiences of family planning workers. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Lawson, Annette, Rhode, Deborah L., eds. 1993. The politics of pregnancy: Adolescent sexuality and public policy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Lesko, Nancy . 2001. Act your age! A cultural construction of adolescence. New York: Routledge Falmer. Google Scholar | |
|
Levine, Judith . 2002. Harmful to minors: The perils of protecting minors from sex. Cambridge, MA: De Capo Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Luker, Kristin . 1996. Dubious conceptions: The politics of teenage pregnancy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Luker, Kristin . 2006. When sex goes to school: Warring views on sex and sex education since the sixties. New York: Norton. Google Scholar | |
|
Mamo, Laura . 2007. Queering reproduction: Achieving pregnancy in the age of technoscience. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Mann, Emily S. 2010. The politics of teenage sexualities: Social regulation, citizenship, and the U.S. state. Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland-College Park, College Park, MD. Google Scholar | |
|
Martin, Emily . 1987. The woman in the body: A cultural analysis of women’s reproduction. Boston: Beacon. Google Scholar | |
|
Mendoza-Denton, Norma . 2008. Homegirls: Language and cultural practice among Latina youth gangs. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Nathanson, Constance . 1991. Dangerous passage: The social control of young women’s sexuality in adolescence. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Pascoe, C. J. 2007. Dude, you’re a fag: Masculinity and sexuality in high school. Berkeley: University of California Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Patton, Cindy . 1996. Fatal advice: How safe-sex education went wrong. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Richardson, Diane . 2000. Rethinking sexuality. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Google Scholar | |
|
Riesmann, Catherine K. 1985. Women and medicalization: A new perspective. Social Policy 14:3-18. Google Scholar | |
|
Romo, Laura F., Nadeem, Erum, Kouyoumdjian, Claudia. 2010. Latina/o parent-adolescent communication about sexuality. In Latina/o sexualities: Probing powers, passions, practices, and policies, edited by Asencio, M. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Rothman, Barbara Katz . 1989. Recreating motherhood: Ideology and technology in a patriarchal society. New York: Norton. Google Scholar | |
|
Schalet, Amy . 2009. Subjectivity, intimacy, and the empowerment paradigm of adolescent sexuality: The unexplored room. Feminist Studies 35 (1): 133-60. Google Scholar | ISI | |
|
Schalet, Amy . 2010. Sexual subjectivity revisited: The significance of relationships in Dutch and American girls’ experiences of sexuality. Gender & Society 24 (3): 304-29. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Schalet, Amy . 2011. Not under my roof! Parents, teens, and the culture of sex. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Smith, Anna Marie . 2007. Welfare reform and sexual regulation. New York: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Somerville, Siobhan B. 2005. Notes toward a queer history of naturalization. American Quarterly 57:659-75. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Tolman, Deborah . 2002. Dilemmas of desire: Teenage girls talk about sexuality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Tolman, Deborah . 2005. Found(ing) discourses of desire: Unfettering female adolescent sexuality. Feminism & Psychology 15:5-9. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Ward, Jane . 2008. Respectably queer: Diversity culture in LGBT activist organizations. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Ward, Martha C. 1995. Early childbearing: What is the problem and who owns it? In Conceiving the new world order: The global politics of reproduction, edited by Ginsburg, F. D., Rapp, R. Berkeley: University of California Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Wolch, Jennifer R. 1990. The shadow state: Government and voluntary sector in transition. New York: The Foundation Center. Google Scholar | |
|
Zavella, Patricia . 2003. Talkin’ sex: Chicanas and Mexicanas theorize about silences and sexual pleasures. In Chicana feminisms: A critical reader, edited by Arredondo, G. F., Hurtado, A., Klahn, N., Nájera-Ramírez, O., Zavella, P. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref |
