[Samara]

I wish I had the book with me, so I could refer you to the article. It was an anthology of legal and theological essays about American constructions of motherhood and how they play out legally. This essay was by a Latina lawyer, about the case of a 13-year-old Mexican-American girl in Texas who lived with and had a child by a man in his twenties. (Could it be the same case? This one was settled in the mid-90s.) If I’m remembering correctly (I read the article about 2 years ago), he was prosecuted for statutory rape charges; at issue was whether the girl, defined as his common-law wife, should go to school rather than stay home with the baby. The charges were dismissed on the basis of the cultural defense–lawyers argued that in Mexican culture, it was acceptable for such couplings and therefore, he didn’t know he was committing statutory rape. The author of the article argued against this defense, characterizing it as a way for American officials to evade their responsibility to protect the girl’s well-being–if she had been white, there’s no way that defense would have flown. The author also characterized it as a way for people to cloak the sexism encapsulated by the defense in ‘cultural sensitivity’–essentially using one political cause to sell out another–which is why the case divided liberals so much. I will look up the author and the article and refer you to it.

User Detail :  

Name : Samara, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 24, City : Keene, State : NH, Country : United States, Occupation : Writer, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

[Author]

Posts