Reproductive Racism in Danielle Evans’s “Harvest:” Black, Chicana, and White Motherhoods in the Context of Reproductive Rights Discourses

Abstract

The paper explores the short story “Harvest” (2010) by African American writer Danielle Evans and traces the figurations of the racialized aspects of gender in “Harvest” within the theoretical frameworks of Black and Chicana feminisms, motherhood studies, and intersectionality. After situating the Black and Chicana characters’ anxieties around egg donation in the historical context of reproductive rights, economics, and the politicization of Black and Chicana women’s bodies, I discuss how the intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, and class impact the racialized gender identity of especially the Black protagonist and to a smaller extent that of her Chicana and white friends as well. I argue that the current practices of egg donation depicted in the story are imbricated in the wider system of racial capitalism that values women’s childbearing capacities differentially in terms of their race.