"Money doesn't make up for what happened to them": California compensates victims of forced sterilizations

Mary Franco was 13 years old when she was sterilized in a mental institution for being "mentally weak."

Kelli Dillon thought, while in prison, that she would have a cyst removed on her ovaries when she actually had a hysterectomy.

These irregular procedures, which were not communicated to patients, occurred for decades in California.

After decades of struggle and pain, the victims and their families are being recognized by the state.

California approved this week, as part of the budget, a monetary compensation of up to $ 25,000 for some of the thousands of people who were

sterilized, some when they were just girls, for decades by the Government for considering them "unfit to reproduce."

It thus becomes the third state, after Virginia and North Carolina, to compensate the victims of

eugenic laws, which sought to sterilize people with mental illnesses, physical disabilities and other traits considered undesirable

and thus supposedly "improve the race. human ".

These laws were passed with the support of both Democrats and Republicans.

"It's been incredible, quite surreal," Stacy Córdova, whose aunt Mary Franco, was forcibly sterilized when she was 13 years old, told Noticias Telemundo in 1934.

Mary Franco, who was sterilized at age 13 in 1934 at a state mental health institution in California.

Courtesy Stacy Córdova

"It was quite traumatic for her," Córdova said of the effect on her aunt having been sterilized without her consent at such a young age.

"He wanted a big family. He never made it."

Córdova said that the approval of this budget "does feel like an apology, that they are fixing an injustice ... 

They will never be able to undo it, and no money could fix it.

 But it gives a degree of peace to know that they are trying to fix this. hurt".

California this week approved setting aside $ 7.5 million for severance payments, part of its $ 262.6 billion operating budget signed Friday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

"No figure would be enough to compensate something as terrible as taking away a person's decision to start a family," Susy Chávez, communications director for Latinas of California for Reproductive Justice, or CLRJ for its acronym in English, told Noticias Telemundo. , an organization that fought for these compensation to be approved, in addition to promoting the right to decide: to have or have children.

"But

we are happy to at least know that the state is admitting its guilt

and that it is doing something to repair it and not keep hiding a story that keeps repeating itself."

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"We believe that in some way it helps to set a precedent to bring these stories to light and bring justice to all survivors," said Chávez.

The dark legacy of racism and eugenics

Since the early 1900s, California has sterilized more than 20,000 people before the eugenics law was repealed in 1979. According to calculations by the Sterilization and Social Justice Laboratory at the University of Michigan (SSJLab) there are currently 627 survivors, 383 from eugenic sterilizations and 244 from illegal sterilization in prisons.

Both men and women were sterilized under these laws, as were people of all races and ethnicities. But Latinas were disproportionately victims of these procedures. The SSJLab estimates that, during the program's heyday from 1919 to 1952, women and girls were 14% more likely to be sterilized than men,

Latinas 59% more likely than non-Latinas,

and Latino men a 23% more likely to be sterilized than non-Latinos.

California's forced sterilization program began in 1909, after similar laws were passed in Indiana and Washington state.

It was by far the largest program, a third of all people sterilized in America under those laws.

It was so prominent that it

inspired similar practices in Nazi Germany

,

Paul Lombardo, a law professor at Georgia State University and an expert on the eugenics movement

, told

The Associated Press

.

"The promise of eugenics from the beginning was to end all state institutions: prisons, hospitals, nursing homes, orphanages," explained Lombardo.

"The people who were in those places would just stop being born after a while if their parents were sterilized."

California's proposal for redress for victims is unique in that it would also pay

women who were forced by the state to be sterilized while in prison,

as recently as 2010.

A June 2014 state audit found that

the state sterilized 144 women between 2005 and 2013 and that none of them were

properly

informed

or offered alternative treatment.

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According to the audit, of those 144 women who underwent a process called tubal ligation,

65% were black, Hispanic, Mexican

or other minorities.

"This type of human rights violations did not end these laws that were passed 100 years ago, but have continued in one way or another," said Chávez.

“An example of that is the incarcerated population that has been sterilized.

In a way,

these eugenics laws continue to have a very dark legacy in the institutions of the state.

The CLRJ has fought for at least eight years to approve this compensation, Chávez said, hand in hand with groups such as the California Coalition of Incarcerated Women, the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund and Back to the Basics, which seeks to empower to disadvantaged communities in Los Angeles.

They also worked with Renee Tajima-Peña, the director of the PBS documentary

No More Babies

, on the more than 200 forced sterilizations that occurred in Los Angeles County between 1968 and 1974, at the Los Angeles-USC Medical Center.

And while the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors apologized for those sterilizations in 2018, those women are not eligible for severance pay under this California budget.

But the activists say they hope to include them in the future.

Healing pain from generation to generation

The repercussions of these practices are felt by the victims and their families over the years, explained Chávez.

“It is not just sterilizing a person.

Talking to these families, we know that they

have suffered very tragic consequences and a lot of pain and trauma ”.

Many have had to seek psychological help, said the Los Angeles native.

Something that has helped her heal is joining the fight to hold the state accountable for what it did.

"It has been very important for them to be involved in bringing a sense of justice."

This is the case of Stacy Córdova and her family.

Stacy Cordova, whose aunt was a victim of California's forced sterilization program that began in 1909, displays a framed photo of her aunt, Mary Franco, on Monday, July 5, 2021, in Azusa, California.

Franco was sterilized when he was 13 years old in 1934. Franco died but Cordova has been advocating for reparations on his behalf.AP / Jae C. Hong

Córdova, a 44-year-old special needs teacher of Mexican grandparents, has extensively investigated the case of her aunt, Mary Franco, whom she interviewed shortly before her death.

Official documents described Franco, who died, as "mentally weak" due to "sexual deviation," Córdova told Noticias Telemundo.

Córdova said Franco

was

actually

abused by a neighbor and that her family committed her to an institution

to protect the family's reputation.

One of the conditions for her to be released was that she be sterilized. 

Having been institutionalized by her family and subjected to a poorly done procedure that left her after effects and pain for the rest of her life, and that denied her the possibility of having a family, had a profound and permanent impact on her since she was a child.

Then, at 17, Franco fell in love with a man and they got married, his niece said.

But when he found out that she couldn't have children, he returned her to her parents' home.

"It broke her heart. She never saw him again."

Although "he had many suitors and was the life of the party," said Córdova, Franco lived a lonely life, devoted to his nephews, working for 30 years for the

Starkist Tun a

tuna company

.

From the procedure she suffered from bleeding and health problems, until in her sixties she had to undergo a hysterectomy, or removal of the uterus, Cordova said.

"She had a spark, she was strong and brave. She would have loved to hear this news," Córdova said, moved to tears as she remembered her aunt and how difficult her life was.

"She never thought she was part of something bigger." 

Start to heal

For some women, the trauma of the procedure was compounded by having to realize what they had been subjected to by putting together the pieces of a macabre puzzle about their own lives.

Susy Chávez explains that this happened to women like Kelli Dillon, who was sterilized while incarcerated in a California state jail and is the star of the recent PBS documentary

Belly of the Beast

, or

The Belly of the Beast

.

Stacy Cordova, whose aunt was a victim of California's forced sterilization program that began in 1909, holds a framed photo of her aunt Mary Franco, Monday, July 5, 2021, in Azusa, California.

AP / Jae C. Hong

At age 24, in 2001, she was told she needed surgery for a cyst on an ovary.

They actually performed a hysterectomy.

This mother of two did not know the truth until her lawyer (not the doctors who treated her) informed her that she would not have any more children.

In documenting these types of cases, the CLRJ also enlisted the help of Dillon.

“For her it is a trauma and a very big fight to bring justice, not only for her, but

for all the black, Latino and indigenous women who have suffered because of this.

That they have taken away the power to decide for themselves

due to the fact of being incarcerated, ”said Chávez.

Getting the compensation budget approved was a great achievement for both Dillon and Chávez, as well as family members like Córdova, but it will not be the end of a duel that has taken decades and destroyed thousands of lives.

“I don't know if it is justice.

Money does not make up for what happened to them.

But it's good to know that he's being recognized, ”said Córdova, who is writing a book about his aunt and how she exemplifies systemic racism against Latino immigrants.

Family members like her are not eligible for payments, only direct victims are. 

“For me, this is not about money.

It's about keeping my aunt's memory and legacy alive. "