Sterilization of Latinas

The California Act of 1909 was one of the major legal and political influences that established authority for doctors and psychiatrists of state hospitals and mental institutions to perform sterilizations on the people unfit to function in society because of their intelligence levels, presumed future deviant behavior and sexual activity.

A survey in mental deviations in prisons, public schools, and orphanages in California institutions reported worriness of feeble-mindedness and relation of intelligence to previous delinquency record.

[14] These concerns from scholars, scientist, and government officials inform the thought process behind the association between poverty, health, and economy with population throughout the 20th century.

American colonizers asserted absolute dominance over Puerto Rico due to the idea of Manifest Destiny, which greatly shifted the dynamics of the island.

The U.S. capitalized on the fact that Puerto Rico utilized a large fraction of its resources to gain independence from Spain, which left the island's economy depleted.

[18] In the 1930s, Puerto Rican citizens began to experience the adverse health effects of tuberculosis, malaria, diarrhea-enteritis, hookworm, and dietary-deficiencies that were responsible for over 40 percent of deaths.

[19] This economic development program enticed industries within the U.S. that were in search of "cheap labor, tax exemptions, and free trade between Puerto Rico and the mainland".

[14] This rapid foreign investment provided promise for disadvantaged Puerto Rican women who were struggling to navigate through domestic working conditions and limited job opportunities.

[14] United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women defines forced sterilizations as "a method of medical control of an individual's fertility without consent".

The women working in these factories felt an immense amount of pressure to undergo a sterilization to prove to employers that their pregnancy would not deter them from completing their job.

[14] Puerto Rican women on sugar plantations were discriminated against while others were incentivized to alter their reproductive capacity to become the ideal responsible and dependable female worker.

[24] More specifically, the Puerto Rican Eugenics Boards reviewed and confirmed petitions from the government and private entities to inflict sterilizations amongst the perceived "insane", "feeble minded", "diseased", and "dependent".

[24] It was legitimized by the belief that Puerto Rico was a failing economy that consisted of "unfit" people that should be addressed by decreasing the population density through the means of forced sterilizations.

Because of this, starting in the early 20th century, they were deemed as a significant problem to the community as they were believed to be mentally weak due to their prolonged adjustment to the American culture.

These Mexican and Mexican-American women were given the stereotype as "hyper-fertile" and were believed to lack the knowledge of birth control methods due to the high numbers of teen pregnancies occurring within their community.

This story was released by the Southern Poverty Law Center and led to the discovery of 16 thousand women and 8,000 men being sterilized using federal funds in 1972.

Many women were coerced into have the tubal ligation procedure done right after postpartum which was paid for using federal money that was dispersed into the War On Poverty first initiated by Lyndon B.

Antonia Hernandez, the plaintiff's attorney in the Madrigal v. Quilligan (1978) lawsuit, is largely responsible for relaying such information, as she spent significant amounts of time patrolling Mexican American barrios searching for Chicana women listed on hospital documents.

The film reveals many justifications for the tubal ligations performed, including rushed, last-minute decision-making, misunderstanding of medical jargon, language barriers, and written signatures of consent.

Dr. Edward James Quilligan, the main defendant on trial, claims that the hospital was simply “practicing good medicine” in one of his interviews for the documentary.

Ultimately, the ten mothers fighting for financial compensation, accountability for medical physicians, and a shift in government policies lost the case.

Federal judge Jesse Curtis Jr. ruled in favor of the hospital, concluding that the doctors were not aware of the harm sterilization would have on Mexican-American women.

This plays a significant role in how the Abortion Rights Movement is remembered in particular; though it is often characterized by inclusive activism, the lived experiences of Mexican-American women prove otherwise.

Gendered issues of bodily autonomy and sexual power relations were also a concern amongst Mexican-American women advancing the Chicano Student Movement.

Unplanned pregnancies and little to no access to birth control barred Chicana students from completing their undergraduate studies, though they tended to excel academically.

[3] Eugenic philosophy claimed scientific legitimacy to uphold racial stereotypes of latino/as, deeming them as unfit and even "hyper-fertile, inadequate mothers, criminally inclined, and more prone to feeblemindedness."

Rivera, 27 at the time, states that during her stay at the hospital, while in advanced labor and under pain medication due to complications, her doctor told her she would be a burden to the government.

[43] In a study conducted in El Paso, Texas, groups of women were asked why they would choose sterilization; many of the top reasons included: not wanting any more children, their current age and health, plans of working or attending school or inability to afford another child.

[45] In the words of his final comment, the judge stated, "One can sympathize with them for their inability to communicate clearly, but one can hardly blame the doctors for relying on these indicia of consent which appeared to be unequivocal on their face and which are in constant use in the medical center.

Researchers estimated hundreds of Californians are alive who might hypothetically qualify before the December 2023 deadline, but reportedly as of early September 2023, only 101 applications had been approved, with seven cases closed as incomplete, and 339 denied.