Writer/scholar Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez and sociologists Iris López and María E. Pérez y González join playwright Nelson Diaz-Marcano to discuss contraceptives, clinical trials, and LAS BORINQUEÑAS

From left, Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez, Iris López, María E. Pérez y González, Nelson Diaz-Marcano

On Saturday, May 4, following the 2:00 PM matinee performance of LAS BORINQUEÑAS, the powerful new drama by Nelson Diaz-Marcano,  everyone is encouraged to stay for a talkback discussion about the cultural, historical, and scientific background of the play.

Set in the 1950s in Puerto Rico, LAS BORINQUEÑAS tells the stories of María, Fernanda, Yolanda, Rosa, and Chavela, all fighting to live full lives in a changing country with crushing societal rules for women. Into their lives comes the American scientist Dr. Gregory Pincus, trying to find test subjects for a clinical trial to test the safety and effectiveness of the first birth control pill, an invention that could give women everywhere freedom. This is a story about medical innovation and the women who risked everything for the chance to live. The audience will have the opportunity to ask questions and join the discussion.

The author of LAS BORINQUEÑAS, Nelson Diaz-Marcano, will moderate the discussion with Latino Studies writer/scholar Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez, and sociologists Iris López and María E. Pérez y González.

LAS BORINQUEÑAS is the 2024 mainstage production of the EST/Sloan Project, EST’s partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to develop new plays “exploring the world of science and technology,” an initiative now in its twenty-fifth year. 

About the Panelists

Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez

Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez is an Afro-Puerto Rican writer, teacher, and scholar from Hoboken, NJ. She is Professor of Africana, Puerto Rican, and Latino Studies at CUNY Hunter and is the Directora of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO). She is author of the award-winning book Decolonizing Diasporas: Radical Mappings of Afro-Atlantic Literature (Northwestern University Press, 2020; translation, Editora Educación Emergente, 2023), and the forthcoming book, The Survival of a People (under contract with Duke University Press). Dr. Figueroa-Vásquez was a Duke University Mellon SITPA Fellow, a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, and a Cornell University Society for the Humanities Fellow. She is the PI and co-director of the 2022-2024 Andrew W. Mellon funded “Diaspora Solidarities Lab,” a $2M Higher Learning project focused on Black feminist digital humanities initiatives that support solidarity work in Black and Ethnic Studies.

Iris López

Iris López is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Program in Latin American and Latin@ Studies at City College of New York, a program she has directed for several terms beginning in 1999. Previously, Dr. López has chaired the Sociology Department (2013-2016), the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Committee (2005-2008), and she was Director of the Women’s Studies Program (1996-1999). She is the author of Matters of Choice: Puerto Rican Women’s Struggle for Reproductive Freedom (Rutgers University Press, 2008). Her book Telling To Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios, co-authored with the Latina Feminist Group, won the 2002 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award. Her research and publications on the Puerto Rican Diaspora in Hawai’i and on sterilization abuse of Puerto Rican women has highlighted crucial connections to globalization, reproductive freedom, and social justice. As an invited speaker and panelist at numerous U.S.-based and international conferences, Dr. López continues to present critical work and speak about her areas of expertise in Latino/ education, gender issues, pre-natal care, and sterilization abuse.

María E. Pérez y González

María E. Pérez y González, Ph.D. (Sociology, Fordham University, National Institute of Mental Health Fellow), is a first-generation Puerto Rican born in Brooklyn, NY, and a first-generation college graduate of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY. Having taught for over 32 years, she is a Professor in the Department of Puerto Rican and Latinx Studies at Brooklyn College, CUNY, with 17 years as Chairperson. Having recently served as Interim Dean of the School of Visual, Media, and Performing Arts, she is the Co-Director of the María E. Sánchez Center for Latinx Studies. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and has completed the Harvard Management Development Program and the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities Leadership Academy: Executive Leadership in Higher Education. Her research includes DiaspoRicans, Latinxs, women in ministry, and Pentecostals; she is the author of Puerto Ricans in the U.S. (Greenwood Press 2000) and co-editor of Puerto Rican Studies in the City University of New York: The First 50 Years (Centro Press 2021).

About the Moderator

Nelson Diaz-Marcano

Nelson Diaz-Marcano is a Puerto Rican NYC-based theater maker, advocate, and community leader whose mission is to create work that challenges and builds community. His play, LAS BORINQUEÑAS, is the 2024 EST/Sloan Mainstage Production in April 2024. He currently serves as the Literary Director for the Latinx Playwright Circle where he has helped develop over 100 plays in the past three years. His plays have been developed by the Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Road Theatre Company, Pipeline Theatre Company, Clubbed Thumb, The Lark, Vision Latino Theater Company, The Orchard Project, The William Inge Theatre Festival, Classical Theatre of Harlem, and The Parsnip Ship, among others. Recent credits include: World Classic (Bishop Theatre Arts Center), Y Tu Abuela, Where is She? Part 1 (CLATA), When the Earth Moves, We Dance (Clubbed Thumb, Teatro Vivo), The Diplomats (Random Acts Chicago), Paper Towels (INTAR), Misfit, America (Hunter Theatre Company), I Saw Jesus in Toa Baja (Conch Shell Productions), and Revolt! (Vision Latino Theatre Company).

 LAS BORINQUEÑAS began previews on April 3 and runs through May 5 at EST. You can purchase tickets here.

Historians Donna J. Drucker and Kathryn Lankford join Bioethicist Inmaculada de Melo-Martín and Activist Alia Tejeda to discuss contraceptives, clinical trials, consent, and LAS BORINQUEÑAS

From left, Donna J. Drucker, Kathryn Lankford, Inmaculada de Melo-Martín, Alia Tejeda

On Saturday, April 27, following the 2:00 PM matinee performance of LAS BORINQUEÑAS, the powerful new drama by Nelson Diaz-Marcano,  everyone is encouraged to stay for a talkback discussion about the cultural, historical, and scientific context of the play.

Set in the 1950s in Puerto Rico, LAS BORINQUEÑAS tells the stories of María, Fernanda, Yolanda, Rosa, and Chavela, all fighting to live full lives in a changing country with crushing societal rules for women. Into their lives comes the American scientist Dr. Gregory Pincus, trying to find test subjects for a clinical trial to test the safety and effectiveness of the first birth control pill, an invention that could give women everywhere freedom. This is a story about medical innovation and the women who risked everything for the chance to live. The audience will have the opportunity to ask questions and join the discussion.

Reproductive Justice advocate Alia Tejeda will moderate the discussion with historians Donna J. Drucker and Kathryn Lankford and bioethicist Inmaculada de Melo-Martín,

LAS BORINQUEÑAS is the 2024 mainstage production of the EST/Sloan Project, EST’s partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to develop new plays “exploring the world of science and technology,” an initiative now in its twenty-fifth year. 

About the Panelists

Donna J. Drucker

Donna J. Drucker is a historian who focuses on the history of gender and sexuality as it intersects with science and technology. She received a PhD in history from Indiana University in 2008 and has published four books: The Classification of Sex: Alfred Kinsey and the Organization of Knowledge (Pittsburgh, 2014), The Machines of Sex Research: Technology and the Politics of Identity (Springer, 2014), Contraception: A Concise History (MIT, 2020), and Fertility Technology (MIT, 2023). Her next book on the recent history of abortion worldwide is under contract with Reaktion Books. She works in research development at the Columbia University School of Nursing and tweets from @histofsex. 

Kathryn Lankford

Kathryn Lankford is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the School of Applied Sciences and Arts at Arizona State University where she teaches history and interdisciplinary courses related to medicine, science, technology, gender, and sexuality across a variety of times and places. She previously taught at Michigan State University and served as an advisor at the University of Michigan. Kathryn earned her Ph.D. in History from Michigan State University in 2021. Her dissertation, “More than a Way Station: Ground-Level Experiences in the Field Trials of Oral Contraceptives and IUDs in Puerto Rico, 1956-1966,” examined the field trials of the first birth control pills and new intrauterine devices in Puerto Rico from the perspective of ground-level actors and the agencies affiliated with the tests. She is currently expanding and revising this research.

Inmaculada de Melo-Martín

Inmaculada de Melo-Martín, PhD, MS is Professor of Medical Ethics in the Division of Medical Ethics, and in the Graduate School of Medical Sciences at Weill Cornell Medical College. She is also the Co-Director of the Regulatory and Ethics Knowledge and Support Core for the Clinical & Translational Science Center (CTSC) at Weill Cornell. She holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy and a M.S. in Molecular Biology. Her research interests include bioethics and philosophy of science and she has published extensively in both areas.  Her work explores epistemic aspects and ethical challenges confronting the biomedical sciences. In her research, informed by feminist values, she has called attention to the importance of science when making ethical judgments, the importance of ethics when evaluating new scientific and technological developments, and the importance of attending to the social and political context when assessing science and technology. She has served on the Empire State Stem Cell Board Ethics Committee and is a Fellow of the Hastings Center. Her most recent books are Rethinking Reprogenetics (OUP, 2017), and with Kristen Intemann, The Fight Against Doubt (OUP, 2018).

About the Moderator

Alia Tejeda

Alia Tejeda, a native New Yorker, serves as New York Field Organizer at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice (Latina Institute), where they are building the New York activist base to raise the voices of Latina/xs in the state for reproductive justice. Alia comes to Latina Institute with years of activism experience in abortion access. Since 2015, Alia has been a lead clinic escort for multiple clinics in New York City. They have also been a dedicated case manager for New York Abortion Access Fund (NYAAF), assisting its board in training new case managers.

Alia has worked in education and youth development for over five years at Exploring the Arts (ETA). During their time at ETA, Alia partnered with over 60 different art and cultural institutions throughout New York City and created a bicoastal training series in leadership and development with social-emotional learning components. They have also received certifications from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing. Alia received their BA in Theatre and Performance with a concentration in Directing and Arts Management from the State University of New York at Purchase College.

 LAS BORINQUEÑAS began previews on April 3 and runs through May 5 at EST. You can purchase tickets here.

Bioethicist Tia Powell, New York State Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas, Playwright Nelson Diaz-Marcano join Activist Elizabeth Estrada to discuss clinical trials, consent, and LAS BORINQUEÑAS

From left: Tia Powell, Jessica González-Rojas, Nelson Diaz-Marcano, Elizabeth Estrada

On Saturday, April 20, following the 2:00 PM matinee performance of LAS BORINQUEÑAS, the powerful new drama by Nelson Diaz-Marcano, everyone is encouraged to stay for a talkback discussion about the many charged issues the play addresses.

Set in the 1950s in Puerto Rico, LAS BORINQUEÑAS tells the stories of María, Fernanda, Yolanda, Rosa, and Chavela, all fighting to live full lives in a changing country with crushing societal rules for women. Into their lives comes the American scientist Dr. Gregory Pincus, trying to find test subjects for a clinical trial to test the safety and effectiveness of the first birth control pill, an invention that could give women everywhere freedom. This is a story about medical innovation and the women who risked everything for the chance to live. The audience will have the opportunity to ask questions and join the discussion.

Reproductive Justice advocate Elizabeth Estrada will moderate the discussion with bioethicist Dr. Tia Powell; activist, academic, and New York State Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas; and the author of LAS BORINQUEÑAS, Nelson Diaz-Marcano.

LAS BORINQUEÑAS is the 2024 mainstage production of the EST/Sloan Project, EST’s partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to develop new plays “exploring the world of science and technology,” an initiative now in its twenty-fifth year. 

About the Panelists

Dr. Tia Powell

Tia Powell, MD is a Professor of Epidemiology and Psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center and former director of the Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics. Dr. Powell focuses on bioethics issues related to public policy, aging, dementia, end-of-life care, and public health disasters. She served as Executive Director of the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, which was New York State’s bioethics commission. She founded Einstein’s MS program in Bioethics and directed it for 13 years. Dr. Powell has worked with the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine on many projects, and currently chairs their report Committee for Research Priorities for Preventing and Treating Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias. She has worked with the CDC, NY State and City, and various professional organizations on issues related to public health ethics and disasters. She served as a special advisor to AHRQ on ethics, dementia and multiple chronic conditions. She is on the American Psychiatric Association ethics committee and is a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine and the Hastings Center. She wrote Dementia Reimagined: Building a Life of Joy and Dignity from Beginning to End, published by Penguin Random House. Dr. Powell received a BA from Harvard College and an MD from Yale Medical School. She is currently collaboratively developing a film project on living well at the end of life.

New York State Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas

New York State Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas (Democrat/Working Families Party) represents the 34th Assembly District, which includes the diverse communities of Astoria, Corona, East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, and Woodside in Queens County. She has dedicated her life to fighting for immigrant rights, racial justice, LGBTQ liberation, health care access, labor power, and gender equity while forging connections between various progressive movements. Jessica is a progressive champion and brings her advocacy and organizing expertise to her work as an Assemblymember.

Before running for office, Jessica served in leadership for 13 years at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice (formerly the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health), including as Executive Director. The nonprofit is the only national reproductive justice organization dedicated to building power among Latinas to advance the health, dignity, and justice of over 30 million Latinas across the country. Jessica is currently an adjunct faculty at New York University (NYU) School of Law and has served as adjunct faculty at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and the City University of New York’s (CUNY) City College. She has taught courses on Latinidad, reproductive rights, and gender and sexuality. She recently co-instructed a course at the New York University School of Law. She has authored essays in multiple publications on those topics as well.

Nelson Diaz-Marcano

Nelson Diaz-Marcano is a Puerto Rican NYC-based theater maker, advocate, and community leader whose mission is to create work that challenges and builds community. His play, LAS BORINQUEÑAS, is the 2024 EST/Sloan Mainstage Production in April 2024. He currently serves as the Literary Director for the Latinx Playwright Circle where he has helped develop over 100 plays in the past three years. His plays have been developed by the Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Road Theatre Company, Pipeline Theatre Company, Clubbed Thumb, The Lark, Vision Latino Theater Company, The Orchard Project, The William Inge Theatre Festival, Classical Theatre of Harlem, and The Parsnip Ship, among others. Recent credits include: World Classic (Bishop Theatre Arts Center), Y Tu Abuela, Where is She? Part 1 (CLATA), When the Earth Moves, We Dance (Clubbed Thumb, Teatro Vivo), The Diplomats (Random Acts Chicago), Paper Towels (INTAR), Misfit, America (Hunter Theatre Company), I Saw Jesus in Toa Baja (Conch Shell Productions), and Revolt! (Vision Latino Theatre Company).

About the Moderator

Elizabeth Estrada

Elizabeth Estrada serves as the New York Field and Advocacy Manager at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice (Latina Institute) where she engages in movement-building for reproductive justice, develops community leadership, builds relationships with key stakeholders, and develops campaigns throughout New York State.

Previously, she served as the Civic Engagement Manager where she organized voter engagement campaigns to raise the voices of Latinxs in Florida, Texas, and Virginia for policy change at all levels of government on issues that impact people's reproductive freedom and self-determination. Elizabeth immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico with her parents at the age of 4, where she remained undocumented until age 13.  She learned grassroots organizing and policy advocacy in The Southeast while partnering with immigrant justice organizations throughout the region. Elizabeth then went on to become a state certified Sexual and Reproductive Health Worker or “Promotora” for the Lifting Latina Voices Initiative (LLVI) at the Feminist Women’s Health Center in Atlanta. Elizabeth has had the honor of supporting the growth and leadership of hundreds of women, girls, and femmes in the reproductive justice movement. She continues to translate her 10+ years’ experience to the work she is currently building in New York. Additionally, Elizabeth serves as the Board Secretary for SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective and is a Case Manager with the New York Abortion Access Fund (NYAAF).

 LAS BORINQUEÑAS began previews on April 3 and runs through May 5 at EST. You can purchase tickets here.

Nelson Diaz-Marcano on clinical trials, birth control, women at risk, and LAS BORINQUEÑAS

Nelson Diaz-Marcano

Is there a way to measure the cost in human lives of medical breakthroughs? Does the number of lives saved by a breakthrough offset the lives harmed by the experiments that enabled it? Are we willing to revisit how unethical historical experiments were?

LAS BORINQUEÑAS, the hard-hitting new drama by Nelson Diaz-Marcano, confronts exactly these questions. The play derives its title from Borinquén, the aboriginal Taino name for the island of Puerto Rico, and tells two parallel stories: one about the American scientists who in the 1950s made the world-changing discovery that a pill could prevent conception, and the far less heroic story of how the clinical trial for the pill was conducted with the women of Puerto Rico.

LAS BORINQUEÑAS will have its first public reading at 3:00 PM on Thursday, June 1 at the Ensemble Studio Theatre as part of the 2023 EST/Sloan First Light Festival. The reading is free but reservations are encouraged.

We interviewed the playwright back in 2021 when the play had an invitation-only reading as part of that year’s First Light Festival. The interview below recaps some of those answers along with Nelson’s thoughts on what has changed — in the play and in the world.

(Interview by Rich Kelley)

Take us back to the origin of LAS BORINQUEÑAS. How did it start?

Years ago, as I started doing my research on the Puerto Rican revolt of 1951 for another play, I stumbled upon the details of the birth control mass trials that were conducted in Puerto Rico. While there are plenty of stories about medical negligence and abuse in Puerto Rico, this one fascinated me the most because the results of the experiments ultimately benefited the world. But whose world? Who got the most from these trials? Were the women rewarded for their bodies being used? What was the human cost of the birth control pill? Do good results excuse evil practices? Those questions kept percolating in my mind as I unfolded the history we were never told.

LAS BORINQUEÑAS is part of my life-goal project to expose the hidden/forgotten history of Puerto Rico through the celebration of those who lived it.

What kind of research did you do in writing the play?

Dr. Gregory Goodwin Pincus (seated at the table) and Dr. John Rock (pictured on the right). Source: Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research

I read dozens of academic articles about the trials, about John Rock, Gregory Pincus, Margaret Sanger, Katherine McCormick, the birth control movement and, in particular, the books The Birth of the Pill:  How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution by Jonathan Eig and A Good Man, Gregory Goodwin Pincus: The Man, His Story, the Birth Control Pill by Leon Sperrof. I watched Ana María García’s 1982 documentary La Operación and spent hours watching stock footage from Puerto Rico and America from that time. And I talked to my grandmother and others who lived during the 50s and 60s to get a sense of how they felt and acted.

Did anything you discovered in your research surprise you?

I want to say yes, but sadly, very little surprised me due to the years I spent researching the relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States. The corruption, the lack of care for the native population, the scientific risks which cost lives — these have all been constant fixtures of that relationship. What surprises me — and always does — is the lives of the survivors after the event. How these women who got no rewards or recognition for their contribution continued raising their kids, taking care of their families, and lived full lives. I am continually surprised by the spirit of the survivors and their complete dedication to live as happily as they can. I wanted to show that in this play.

The clinical trial depicted in the play — testing the contraceptive pill Enovid in Puerto Rico in the 1950s — seems very problematic. What did the participants in this trial know about what they were taking and what effects to expect?

They didn’t know much. Some women thought these pills were part of a survey on family size, others were told these pills were an experimental contraceptive, but they got no specifics about any side effects or the real nature of the experiment. The demand for a contraceptive pill was high at the time, so women flocked to the trial thinking they would be safe. Little did they know the scientists were using them to find out what the actual side effects were and what needed to be tweaked in the formula to make it safe for consumption on the mainland. In other words, to create a better product they were providing pills that they knew could be toxic to these women without informing them of the risks.

Five Puerto Rican women are at the heart of your play; four participate in the trial. How did you decide the right number to have and how to differentiate the characters?

To be honest, there was no specific reason for the number of women. I wanted to create characters based on the women I grew up around in the late 80s and early 90s and their dynamic. While the men were “working,” the women were doing the house chores, trying to take care of the kids. Some of them had jobs, yet all of them were expected to do it all. The best part of their day was when they were able to steal moments for each other. Their conversations always went from religion to politics to whatever happened in the neighborhood that day. They knew everything, had an opinion about it all, but only had each other to decompress with as their men came like storms and changed the environment.

Two characters in the play have a secret extramarital gay relationship. How common was this in Catholic Puerto Rico in the 1950s? Why was this important for you to include?

The thing about queer history is that it’s always been common, we were just not as privy to it as we are today. This is especially true in heavily colonized communities where indoctrination through religion is fierce and brutal. You are not only afraid of the masters, but you are also afraid of the oppressed as they seek to please their masters. There’s always been people hiding in marriages, people being chastised for being too femme/boyish, people being condemned due to their sexuality, for not fitting the mold. I included it in this story because I believe love is the most pure emotion we all share, and even that is decided for them by men.

“Who can they love? How can they love? What are their duties to that love?” These are the questions each woman deals with in this play. The homosexual relationship explores a big aspect of that dilemma.

LAS BORINQUEÑAS had an invitation-only reading as part of the First Light Festival in March 2021. What have you changed in the play since then and why?

Mostly, the Gregory Pincus storyline [Biologist Gregory Pincus was co-inventor with gynecologist John Rock of the combined oral contraceptive pill]. One of the things we noticed was that while the women’s story was strong, the Pincus storyline lacked the same emotional power. This version aims to create an emotional anchor that connects the two pieces and shows the stakes everyone was dealing with. It also creates a less black and white narrative.

Dr. Edris Rice-Wray  (Photo: HenryLee Marlo/CC 3.0)

The play no longer includes John Rock or Margaret Sanger. The scientific storyline focuses on Pincus and Dr. Edris Rice-Wray, the medical director of the Puerto Rico Family Planning Association who conducted the clinical trials. How has this narrower focus helped you present the science in the play?

It has allowed me to simplify the scientific issues in a way that bolsters the pacing of the story but creates a path for people to go afterward and educate themselves about what happened. Not only in this instance but how in history Puerto Rico has been a scientific playground for questionable practices by USA scientists.

Why this play? Why now?

These women represent how most of the comforts of this world have been built on the backs of brown and black bodies. This play shows how much of a business the medical industry is and how colonies/poor countries are treated as experimental grounds for the more developed societies. This is very important to know and remember as we go through a pandemic that is killing black and brown people at a higher rate while they demand human rights.

What do you want the audience to take away from LAS BORINQUEÑAS?

Enovid Credit: G.D. Searle &Co./Pharmacia Company Credit

I want them to question where their comfort comes from. I want them to understand a  bit more about what colonization does to the countries that are supposed to benefit. I want them to realize that many of the things people enjoy in their lives were constructed on top of the lives of people of color. I want them to honor those lives. But more importantly, I want the audience to meet these women and take a little bit of their spirit and culture with them.

What discoveries have you made about the play and what you wanted to do in it during your rewriting?

That we have created a society where doing good, where creating miracles, where wanting to improve society, comes with a certain darkness. Even if you have the best intentions at the start, the games you have to play to be able to accomplish anything end up getting those intentions destroyed. Are the accomplishments necessary? Absolutely. Do we need to hurt people in the process? I don’t think so.

Is it your sense that anything has now changed in the world to give the play a different context?

Roe vs Wade has been struck. Books are being banned in America. We have openly bigoted people running for office again, but this time they are empowered. The more things have changed in the past year the more we have returned to the world where the women of LAS BORINQUEÑAS existed. 

Why is LAS BORINQUEÑAS the perfect title for this play?

Because this story is about them, not the trials. It’s about their lives and their dreams. It’s about those women who should be honored every day for their lives. It’s about getting them the recognition they deserve.

What’s next for Nelson Diaz-Marcano?

Keep on uplifting and developing Latine voices as part of the LatinX Playwrights Circle. Besides that, I’m working on a few other projects with the likes of The Road Theatre Company. I have a reading coming on June 15 with the Exquisite Corpse Company and after that — Off-Broadway? We manifest!

LAS BORINQUEÑAS is one of seven readings of new plays in development as part of the EST/Sloan Project in this year’s First Light Festival, which runs until June 22. All readings are free, but reservations are encouraged.The festival is made possible through the alliance between The Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Nelson Diaz-Marcano on clinical trials, colonization, women at risk, and LAS BORINQUEÑAS

Nelson Diaz-Marcano

What is the cost in human lives of medical breakthroughs? On Thursday, March 25, the 2021 EST/Sloan First Light Festival hosted an invitation-only reading of LAS BORINQUEÑAS, the new play by Nelson Diaz-Marcano. The play derives its title from Borinquén, the aboriginal Taino name for the island of Puerto Rico, and tells two parallel stories: one about the American scientists who in the 1950s made the world-changing discovery that a pill could prevent conception, and the far less heroic story of how the clinical trial for the pill was conducted with the women of Puerto Rico. The playwright tells us more.

(Interview by Rich Kelley)

Take us back to the origin of LAS BORINQUEÑAS. How did it start?

Years ago, as I started doing my research on the Puerto Rican revolt of 1951 for another play, I stumbled upon the details of the birth control mass trials that were conducted in Puerto Rico. While there are plenty of stories about medical negligence and abuse in Puerto Rico, this one fascinated me the most because the results of the experiments ultimately benefited the world. But whose world? Who got the most from these trials? Were the women rewarded for their bodies being used? What was the human cost of the birth control pill? Do good results excuse evil practices? Those questions kept percolating in my mind as I unfolded the history we were never told.

LAS BORINQUEÑAS is part of my life-goal project to expose the hidden/forgotten history of Puerto Rico through the celebration of those who lived it.

What kind of research did you do in writing the play?

Dr. Gregory Goodwin Pincus (seated at the table) and Dr. John Rock (pictured on the right). Source: Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research

I read dozens of academic articles about the trials, about John Rock, Gregory Pincus, Margaret Sanger, Katherine McCormick, the birth control movement and, in particular, the books The Birth of the Pill:  How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution by Jonathan Eig and A Good Man, Gregory Goodwin Pincus: The Man, His Story, the Birth Control Pill by Leon Sperrof. I watched Ana María García’s 1982 documentary La Operación and spent hours watching stock footage from Puerto Rico and America from that time. And I talked to my grandmother and others who lived during the 50s and 60s to get a sense of how they felt and acted.

Did anything you discovered in your research surprise you?

I want to say yes, but sadly very little surprised me due to the years I spent researching the relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States. The corruption, the lack of care for the native population, the scientific risks which cost lives — these have all been constant fixtures of that relationship. What surprises me — and always does — is the lives of the survivors after the event. How these women who got no rewards or recognition for their contribution continued raising their kids, taking care of their families, and lived full lives. I am continually surprised by the spirit of the survivors and their complete dedication to live as happily as they can. I wanted to show that in this play.

Dr. Edris Rice-Wray

Several of the characters in the play are based on actual historical figures: Margaret Sanger, Gregory Pincus, John Rock, Edris Rice-Wray. Not everything about them is appealing. How much of these characters reflect what they were like in real life and how much is your invention?

While I took some liberties with their characterization due to this being a narrative work, I didn’t change much of the ideologies they express or the relationships they had with each other.

The clinical trial depicted in the play — testing the contraceptive pill Enovid in Puerto Rico in the 1950s — seems very problematic. What did the participants in this trial know about what they were taking and what effects to expect?

They didn’t know much. Some women thought these pills were part of a survey on family size, others were told these pills were an experimental contraceptive, but they got no specifics about any side effects or the real nature of the experiment. The demand for a contraceptive pill was high at the time, so women flocked to the trial thinking they would be safe. Little did they know the scientists were using them to find out what the actual side effects were and what needed to be tweaked in the formula to make it safe for consumption on the mainland. In other words, to create a better product they were providing pills that they knew could be toxic to these women without informing them of the risks.

Five Puerto Rican women are at the heart of your play; four participate in the trial. How did you decide the right number to have and how to differentiate the characters?

To be honest, there was no specific reason for the number of women. I wanted to create characters based on the women I grew up around in the late 80s and early 90s and their dynamic. While the men were “working,” the women were doing the house chores, trying to take care of the kids. Some of them had jobs, yet all of them were expected to do it all. The best part of their day was when they were able to steal moments for each other. Their conversations always went from religion to politics to whatever happened in the neighborhood that day. They knew everything, had an opinion about it all, but only had each other to decompress with as their men came like storms and changed the environment.

Two characters in the play have a secret extramarital gay relationship. How common was this in Catholic Puerto Rico in the 1950s? Why was this important for you to include?

The thing about queer history is that it’s always been common, we were just not as privy to it as we are today. This is especially true in heavily colonized communities where indoctrination through religion is fierce and brutal. You are not only afraid of the masters, but you are also afraid of the oppressed as they seek to please their masters. There’s always been people hiding in marriages, people being chastised for being too femme/boyish, people being condemned due to their sexuality, for not fitting the mold. I included it in this story because I believe love is the most pure emotion we all share, and even that is decided for them by men.

“Who can they love? How can they love? What are their duties to that love?” These are the questions each woman deals with in this play. The homosexual relationship explores a big aspect of that dilemma.

Enovid Credit: G.D. Searle &Co./Pharmacia Company Credit

Why this play? Why now?

These women represent how most of the comforts of this world have been built on the backs of brown and black bodies. This play shows how much of a business the medical industry is and how colonies/poor countries are treated as experimental grounds for the more developed societies. This is very important to know and remember as we go through a pandemic that is killing black and brown people at a higher rate while they demand human rights.

What do you want the audience to take away from LAS BORINQUEÑAS?

I want them to question where their comfort comes from. I want them to understand a  bit more about what colonization does to the countries that are supposed to benefit. I want them to realize that many of the things people enjoy in their lives were constructed on top of the lives of people of color. I want them to honor those lives. But more importantly, I want the audience to meet these women and take a little bit of their spirit and culture with them.

Why is LAS BORINQUEÑAS the perfect title for this play?

Because this story is about them, not the trials. It’s about their lives and their dreams. It’s about those women who should be honored every day for their lives. It’s about getting them the recognition they deserve.

The 2021 EST/Sloan First Light Festival ran from February 25 through March 29 and featured readings of nine new plays. Most of the readings were open to the public for free and available on Zoom. The festival is made possible through the alliance between The Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, now in its twenty-third year.