Alexandra Minna Stern, Professor of the Department of American Culture at the University of Michigan.
From the 1920s to the 1950s, California sterilized approximately 20,000 people based on a eugenic law that authorized doctors to perform reproductive surgeries on patients deemed unfit.
In the paper Eugenics, sterilization, and historical memory in the United States, Alexandra Minna Stern and her team study medical records to investigate ethnic and gender bias in sterilization policies.
In an interview to our blog, the researcher talks about the sterilization program implemented in California and explains their initial findings, such as that Spanish-surnamed patients were sterilized at higher rates than the general population.
What are the main characteristics of eugenic thinking in the US at the beginning of the twentieth century?
The early twentieth century eugenics movement in the United States was promoted by a heterogeneous group of reformers that sought to apply scientific solutions to supposed social problems. First and foremost, they were concerned with shaping society through disseminating ideas and implementing policies that encouraged the reproduction of the “fit” and discouraged, if not impeded, the reproduction of the “unfit.”
Eugenicists acted on a combination of hubris and anxiety as they saw society changing rapidly around them due to immigration, industrialization, and urbanization. They pursued the goals of “race betterment” through immigration restriction, compulsory sterilization, and another initiatives to classify, select, and delineate desirable from undesirable and normal from abnormal.
How the sterilization program implemented in California during the first half of the twentieth century was related to the idea of race and eugenics?
Like in many other parts of the world, eugenics was intertwined with conceptions of race, disability, and gender. Given that eugenics often pivoted around “us versus them” thinking, and was deeply shaped by pervasive racism and racialist thinking, it reflected and furthered racial and ethnic hierarchies.
In California, this translated into generalized xenophobia towards Southern and Eastern European and Asians, as well as more pronounced anti-Mexican rhetoric and policies. For example, in addition to overseeing the state’s sterilization program, which disproportionately affected Mexicans, the Department of Institutions also maintained an active deportation program, which removed thousands of patients in state homes and hospitals because they were considered a biological and financial burden on the state.
Could you please describe your initial findings in studying a dataset of sterilization in California?
Our research has demonstrated two key findings thus far. First, based on life tables analysis, we estimate that about 800 victims of the state’s compulsory sterilization are likely alive today. This estimate has stimulated conversations about potential monetary compensation for survivors and consideration of other forms of memory work around the state’s eugenics history.
Second, we have shown, by comparing our sterilization data to census data drawn from state insitutions during the same time period (1920-1950), that Spanish-surnamed patients, overwhelmingly Mexican-origin, were sterilized at higher rates than the general population. This effect was compounded further by gender and age. For example, Spanish-surnamed girls under 18 were 3.8 times more likely to sterilized than white male patients.
See Latin Eugenics in a Transnational Context. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos vol.23 supl.1 Rio de Janeiro Dec. 2016.
