California’s Mental Health System Targeted Latinas For Sterilization

By Annie-Rose Strasser, Think Progress

Latina women in California’s mental health system were disproportionately targeted for forced sterilization for seventy years, according to new research by the University of Michigan.

Between 1909 and 1979, Latina women made up between 20 and 30 percent of the total sterilizations for mental health patients in California. It was during those years that California had in place a law that allowed the state to forcibly sterilize “feeble-minded” women, among others, based on the assumption that their offspring would suffer from the same “problems” that they did…

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