Summary Of The Documentary La Operacion

La Operacion is a documentary film that talks about the massive sterilization campaign that occur in Puerto Rico and left one-third of the Puerto Ricans woman population sterilize. The documentary is complete in a sense that it shows maps, data, people speaking of their personal experience, but the most important aspect of it that it shows footage of the surgery. The repetition of the surgery scene gives an idea that this surgery was a common practice of everyday life in Puerto Rico.

In 1898 the United State invaded Puerto Rico and two years later the first governor complains that there were a lot of people living in the island, and not enough man of capital. In 1937 the law 136 legalized sterilization based on the breathing of the fit, so in other words the poor and people of color were exterminated. The doctors could perform this practice if they thought it was necessary based on law number 136. This law was passed in a time where woman labor was the only source of income of the Puerto Ricans family, on this time man were drafted to fight on World War 2. The sterilization campaign used to meet with these businessmen and convinced them that if they would give

A woman in the film explains that, she lack of so much information that in the day after the surgery, she was cut and sew with black thread and she said “O my God” what have they cut me. In addition, she mentions that she was a total ignorant, but she feels that she wasn’t forced to do it that she went on her own free will, but if she would have been told of other childbirth methods she would have done it. Also, another woman said that the gynecologist told her that she was going to have the tied tube procedure that consisted of having her Fallopian tubes tied, but she didn’t know it was also