Las Borinqueñas, a play by Nelson Díaz-Marcano, will be presented at the historic Teatro Francisco Arrivi theater in the Santurce neighborhood of San Juan from October 24-26.
The play tells the tragic story of the women participating in clinical trials of the birth control pill in the 1950s in Puerto Rico, which were conducted without their informed consent and using procedures that would be viewed today as unethical, harmful, and cruel.
The history of the birth control pill
Dr. Gregory Pincus and Dr. John Rock are credited with developing the first hormonal contraceptive pill in the early 1950s in Massachusetts. However, birth control was not legal in Massachusetts, so the inventors were not able to conduct clinical trials openly in their home state. Puerto Rico, on the other hand, had made birth control legal in 1937 and had a network of birth control clinics across the Island.
In addition, although residents of Puerto Rico were and are largely Catholic, birth control was widely accepted. Puerto Rico Governor Beverley had said in 1933, “I have always believed that some method of restricting the birth rate…is the only salvation for the Island.” Local newspapers, academic papers, and government documents all suggested that overpopulation was a large problem and a source of poverty on the Island.
These and other statements often showed eugenicist overtones and sexism.
The trials were not held to today’s standards. Women were not told that the medication was experimental nor that they were the test subjects. They were not fully informed about the side effects, and the researchers were not open and honest about the results. In fact, one researcher, Dr. Edris Rice-Wray, told Pincus that the side effects were enough to make the pill unacceptable. This dynamic between Rice-Wray and Pincus is explored in Las Borinqueñas.
The Cast and Author
Yamaris Latorre will direct the Puerto Rico production and Mariana and Camila Monclova, cousins from a famed Puerto Rican acting family, will be featured along with Anoushka Medina, Yadilyz Barbosa, Eunice Jiménez, Nancy Millán, and José Eugenio Hernández.
The play was written by Díaz-Marcano, a stateside playwright of Puerto Rican heritage, who has agreed to some updates from his New York version of the show to make the work more relevant to life on the Island.
Díaz-Marcano describes “Las Borinqueñas” as “more than a play,” explaining that “they are the women who help a whole country not only survive but preserve its identity. They’re the people who raised and cared for me and mine everyday, despite everything trying to tell them we were not worth it. Las Borinqueñas are our mothers, sisters, partners, friends, who take care of their community despite themselves. Las Borinqueñas are heroes who are often forgotten.”
Looking at the historical background of his work, the author says he was struck by “that unfairness, that these people who gave everything could be lost to time, while these people that took advantage took all the credit, didn’t sit well with me. It doesn’t sit well with me because it’s another part of the erasure of a culture so beautiful that to conquer it, you have to make them forget who they are.”
“But Las Borinqueñas won’t let us forget,” says Díaz-Marcano.
