Racialization and Reproduction: Asian Immigrants and California's Twentieth-Century Eugenic Sterilization Program.

During the twentieth century, state health authorities in California recommended sterilization for over 20,000 individuals held in state institutions. Asian immigrants occupied a marginalized position in racial, gender, and class hierarchies in California at the height of its eugenic sterilization program. Scholars have documented the disproportionate sterilization of other racialized groups, but little research exists connecting the racist, gendered implementation of Asian immigration restriction to the racism and sexism inherent in eugenics.

Disproportionate Sterilization of Latinos Under California's Eugenic Sterilization Program, 1920-1945.

Objectives: To compare population-based sterilization rates between Latinas/os and non-Latinas/os sterilized under California's eugenics law.

Methods: We used data from 17 362 forms recommending institutionalized patients for sterilization between 1920 and 1945. We abstracted patient gender, age, and institution of residence into a data set.

California's Sterilization Survivors: An Estimate and Call for Redress.

From 1919 to 1952, approximately 20 000 individuals were sterilized in California's state institutions on the basis of eugenic laws that sought to control the reproductive capacity of people labeled unfit and defective. Using data from more than 19 000 sterilization recommendations processed by state institutions over this 33-year period, we provide the most accurate estimate of living sterilization survivors. As of 2016, we estimate that as many as 831 individuals, with an average age of 87.