The movement that inspired the Holocaust - Alexandra Minna Stern and Natalie Lira

As a new widow, Sarah Rosas Garcia was already struggling to support her nine children when her oldest daughter was picked up by local authorities. Andrea Garcia had been accused of skipping school and being sexually promiscuous, so the authorities responsible for juvenile delinquents committed her to a state hospital. After being administered an IQ test and assigned a low score, the doctors made their verdict. They told Sara her 19-year-old daughter would be sterilized to prevent passing on what the state saw as a mental deficiency.

This horrific tale may sound like a story from an authoritarian regime. But in fact, it took place in Southern California in 1938. And Andrea Garcia was one of thousands of poor women of color targeted by the state’s relentless campaign of eugenics. Since ancient Greece, there have been efforts to control human populations via reproduction, retaining some traits and removing others. But in the 19th century, the discovery of evolution and genetics inspired a new scientific movement dedicated to this endeavor.

In 1883, British scientist Sir Francis Galton named this idea eugenics, drawn from the Greek word for “to be well born.” This wave of modern eugenicists included prominent scientists and progressive reformers who believed they could improve society by ensuring that only desirable traits were passed down. However, their definition of what traits were and were not desirable was largely determined by the prejudices of their era. Entire categories of people were considered “unfit” for reproduction, including immigrants, people of color, and people with disabilities.

Meanwhile, their ideal genetic standard reflected the movement’s members: white Europeans of Nordic or Anglo-Saxon descent. As the influence of eugenics spread in the early 20th century, many countries restricted immigration and outlawed interracial unions. These measures to improve so-called “racial hygiene” were taken to their horrific conclusion in Nazi Germany. The Nazi eugenics campaign systematically killed millions of Jews, as well as individuals from other groups, including Roma, gay men, and people with disabilities.

Outside their extreme brutality, however, Nazi eugenic policies reflected similar standards across the globe. Throughout the mid-20th century, many countries enacted eugenics policies, and governments in Sweden, Canada, and Japan forcibly sterilized thousands of individuals. Sterilization was exceptionally common in the US. From 1907 to 1979, US policies enforced the sterilization of over 60,000 people, with 32 states passing laws that mandated sterilization for men and women deemed “mentally defective.” This label was typically applied based on superficial mental health diagnoses and the results of IQ tests, which were linguistically and culturally biased against most immigrant populations.

These racist standards were particularly problematic in California. From 1920 to 1945, Latina women were 59% more likely to be sterilized than other women. And the rate of sterilizations in California was incredibly high—this single state performed over one third of the country’s sterilization operations. Such was the case of Andrea Garcia, whose story reflects thousands of individuals with similar fates. With the help of famed civil rights lawyer David Marcus, Andrea’s mother argued that California’s sterilization law violated the US Constitution, depriving Andrea of her rights to equal protection under the law.

However, while one of the three judges overseeing the case voted to spare Andrea, the other two did not. Records suggest it’s possible Andrea escaped the impending surgery, but many more victims of these policies did not. Although eugenics acquired negative connotations after the horrors of World War II, many of its practices, including sterilization, continued for decades. By the late 1960s, research into human genetics was more nuanced, and bioethics had begun to blunt eugenics’ influence.

Yet Sweden and the US continued to pursue involuntary sterilization well into the 70s. Finally, class action lawsuits and protest marches in the US galvanized lawmakers, and California’s sterilization laws were finally repealed in 1979. Unfortunately today, the legal and illegal sterilization of many oppressed communities still continues around the globe.