{"id":354055,"date":"2018-03-27T08:34:49","date_gmt":"2018-03-27T07:34:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/forced-sterilization-programs-in-california-once-harmed-thousands-particularly-latinas\/"},"modified":"2018-03-27T08:34:49","modified_gmt":"2018-03-27T07:34:49","slug":"forced-sterilization-programs-in-california-once-harmed-thousands-particularly-latinas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/forced-sterilization-programs-in-california-once-harmed-thousands-particularly-latinas\/","title":{"rendered":"Forced Sterilization Programs in California Once Harmed Thousands — Particularly Latinas"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In 1942, 18-year-old Iris Lopez, a Mexican-American woman, started working at the Calship Yards in Los Angeles. Working on the home front building\u00a0Victory Ships<\/a>\u00a0not only added to the war\u00a0effort,\u00a0but allowed Iris to support her family.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Iris’ participation in the World War II effort made her part of a\u00a0celebrated time<\/a>\u00a0in US history, when economic opportunities opened up for\u00a0women and youth of color<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, before joining the shipyards, Iris was entangled in another lesser-known history. At the age of 16, Iris was committed to a California institution and sterilized.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Iris wasn’t alone. In the first half of the 20th century,\u00a0approximately 60,000 people were sterilized<\/a>\u00a0under US eugenics programs. Eugenic laws in 32 states empowered government officials in public health, social work and state institutions to render people they deemed “unfit” infertile.\u00a0<\/p>\n

California led the nation in this effort at social engineering. Between the early 1920s and the 1950s, Iris and approximately 20,000 other people — one-third of the national total — were sterilized in California state institutions for the mentally ill and disabled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To better understand the nation’s most aggressive eugenic sterilization program,\u00a0our research team<\/a>\u00a0tracked sterilization requests of over 20,000 people. We wanted to know about the role patients’ race played in sterilization decisions. What made young women like Iris a target? How and why was she cast as “unfit”?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Racial biases affected Iris’ life and the lives of thousands of others. Their experiences serve as an important historical backdrop to ongoing issues in the US today.<\/p>\n

“Race Science” and Sterilization<\/h2>\n

Eugenics was seen as a “science” in the\u00a0early 20th century<\/a>, and its ideas remained popular\u00a0into the midcentury<\/a>. Advocating for the “science of better breeding,” eugenicists endorsed sterilizing people considered unfit to reproduce.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Under\u00a0California’s eugenic law<\/a>, first passed in 1909, anyone committed to a state institution could be…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1942, 18-year-old Iris Lopez, a Mexican-American woman, started working at the Calship Yards in Los Angeles. Working on the home front building\u00a0Victory Ships\u00a0not only added to the war\u00a0effort,\u00a0but allowed Iris to support her family.\u00a0 Iris’ participation in the World War II effort made her part of a\u00a0celebrated time\u00a0in US history, when economic opportunities opened […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":353544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-354055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}