Eugenic Nation SStteerrnn -- 99778800552200228855006644..iinndddd ii 1155//1100//1155 22::4400 PPMM american crossroads Edited by Earl Lewis, George Lipsitz, George Sánchez, Dana Takagi, Laura Briggs, and Nikhil Pal Singh SStteerrnn -- 99778800552200228855006644..iinndddd iiii 1155//1100//1155 22::4400 PPMM Eugenic Nation Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America second edition Alexandra Minna Stern university of california press SStteerrnn -- 99778800552200228855006644..iinndddd iiiiii 1155//1100//1155 22::4400 PPMM University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Oakland, California © 2016 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stern, Alexandra. Eugenic nation : faults and frontiers of better breeding in modern America / Alexandra Minna Stern.—Second edition. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-520-28506-4 (pbk : alk. paper) isbn 978-0-520-96065-7 (ebook) 1. Eugenics—United States—History. 2. Eugenics— California—History. I. Title. II. Series: American crossroads; 17. hq755.5.u5s84 2016 363.9′209794—dc23 2015018767 Manufactured in the United States of America 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on Natures Natural, a fi ber that contains 30% post-consumer waste and meets the minimum requirements of ansi/niso z39.48–1992 (r 1997) (Permanence of Paper). SStteerrnn -- 99778800552200228855006644..iinndddd iivv 1155//1100//1155 22::4400 PPMM Contents List of Illustrations vii Preface to the Second Edition ix Abbreviations xvii Introduction 1 1. Race Betterment and Tropical Medicine in Imperial San Francisco 28 2. Quarantine and Eugenic Gatekeeping on the US-Mexican Border 57 3. Instituting Eugenics in California 82 4. “I Like to Keep My Body Whole”: Reconsidering Eugenic Sterilization in California 111 5. California’s Eugenic Landscapes 139 6. Centering Eugenics on the Family 173 7. Contesting Hereditarianism: Reassessing the 1960s 205 Conclusion 234 Notes 243 Bibliography 325 Acknowledgments 365 Index 369 SStteerrnn -- 99778800552200228855006644..iinndddd vv 1155//1100//1155 22::4400 PPMM This page intentionally left blank Illustrations 1. Deinstitutionalization of mental hospitals and rise of incarcera- tion / xiii 2. Demonstration models for controlling plague, Panama-Pacifi c International Exposition, 1915 / 45 3. Entrance to the Race Betterment Exhibit, Panama-Pacifi c International Exposition, 1915 / 52 4. Mexicans waiting to be disinfected at El Paso street bridge, 1917 / 62 5. Mexican man being administered the smallpox vaccination at El Paso immigration station, 1917 / 63 6. Calculation of cumulative costs saved by deportations from California state institutions, 1930 / 89 7. Sterilizations in California state institutions by year, 1935–44 / 117 8. Diagnoses in California state institutions, 1935–44 / 118 9. Percentages of sterilized patients with Spanish surnames in Sonoma, Patton, and Pacifi c Colony, 1935–44 / 123 10. Sterilization recommendation for a seventeen-year-old Mexican- origin girl at Pacifi c Colony, 1941 / 124 11. Sterilization recommendation for a man of Canadian origin at Stockton State Hospital, 1935 / 129 12. Letter written by an inmate at Patton State Hospital opposing his sterilization, 1947 / 133 vii SStteerrnn -- 99778800552200228855006644..iinndddd vviiii 1155//1100//1155 22::4400 PPMM viii | Illustrations 13. Dedication of Charles M. Goethe Arboretum, 1961 / 168 14. Time line accompanying redwood slice at the Charles M. Goethe Arboretum / 169 15. Woman entering American Institute of Family Relations offi ce, 1952 / 192 16. Paul Popenoe demonstrating the Johnson Temperament Analysis Test / 199 17. Protest in Los Angeles against forced sterilizations, 1974 / 228 SStteerrnn -- 99778800552200228855006644..iinndddd vviiiiii 1155//1100//1155 22::4400 PPMM Preface to the Second Edition In July 2013 the Sacramento-based Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) released an article alleging that 150 female inmates in California state prisons had been sterilized without proper authorization between 2006 and 2010.1 The outcome of more than one year of investigative journalism, this article exposed a broken and unjust system of repro- ductive health services in California women’s prisons. Senator Hannah- Beth Jackson, Democrat from Santa Barbara and vice-chairwoman of the Legislative Women’s Caucus, was one of the fi rst lawmakers to respond to these revelations. She evinced dismay that such reproductive abuse could have transpired in the twenty-fi rst century. Jackson lam- basted the federal Receiver’s Offi ce for failing to maintain medical standards of care in California prisons: “Pressuring a vulnerable popu- lation—including at least one instance of a patient under sedation, to undergo these extreme procedures erodes the ban on eugenics. In our view, such practice violates Constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment; protections that you were appointed to enforce.”2 In the same breath, Jackson requested an investigation by the California state auditor. A comprehensive audit was issued one year later. Corroborating and expanding on the CIR’s fi ndings, it confi rmed that 144 women had been sterilized between fi scal years 2005–6 and 2012–13 without adherence to required protocol and that “defi ciencies in the informed consent process” had occurred in 39 of these cases.3 Some of the irregularities ix SStteerrnn -- 99778800552200228855006644..iinndddd iixx 1155//1100//1155 22::4400 PPMM x | Preface to the Second Edition included inadequate counseling about sterilization and its lasting conse- quences, missing physician signatures on consent forms, neglect of the mandated waiting period, and destruction of medical records in viola- tion of records retention policies. After the release of the audit, Jackson, with ample support from other legislators and the guidance of Justice Now, a prisoners’ rights group, drafted legislation (SB 1135) to ban sterilizations in state prisons except in extreme cases when a patient’s life is in danger or when there is a demonstrated medical need that can- not be met with alternative procedures. This legislation moved easily from committee to the fl oor, where it received unanimous approval (77 ayes and 0 noes), and fi nally to the desk of Governor Jerry Brown, who signed it in September 2014.4 The CIR’s coverage of this story, and the additional information that emerged during the legislative process, unmasked a carceral environ- ment characterized by a haphazard mixture of disregard and undue pressure, coupled with inconsistent supervision that allowed medical staff to act with little procedural accountability. Particularly disturbing were the prejudices expressed by Dr. James Heinrich, a physician who performed many of the tubal ligations. He indiff erently explained to a reporter that the money spent sterilizing inmates was negligible “com- pared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children— as they procreated more.”5 This callous attitude about the reproductive lives of institutionalized women, the majority of whom were low income and women of color, was not new to California. In the 1930s, at the height of eugenic sterilization, superintendents of California state homes and hospitals repeatedly discussed the need to reduce the economic bur- den of “defectives” and their progeny through reproductive surgery. In the late 1960s the University of Southern California/Los Angeles County General Hospital obstetrician who oversaw more than one hundred nonconsensual postpartum tubal ligations of Mexican-origin women purportedly spoke to his staff about “how low we can cut the birth rate of the Negro and Mexican populations in Los Angeles County.”6 Looking back over more than one century, we can map three over- lapping chapters of sterilization abuse. Most dramatically from the late 1900s to the early 1950s, about twenty thousand people in state homes and hospitals were sterilized. By the 1960s, as approaches to mental health and disability evolved, sterilization fell into disfavor and annual rates dropped to the single digits. Yet sterilization abuse appeared in another domain. Newly available federal programs that could fi nance tubal ligations in public facilities converged with readily circulating SStteerrnn -- 99778800552200228855006644..iinndddd xx 1155//1100//1155 22::4400 PPMM