History: The Eugenics Movement

1. The Eugenics Movement was a movement that wanted to improve the human race. They had an idea that there were superior human hereditary traits as well as inferior human hereditary traits. Superior human traits involved having blue eyes, blonde hair, and light skin, all of these traits lead to assumptions that these people were intelligent as well as great athletic ability. Inferior human traits included dark skin and dark colored eyes which lead to the assumption that these people with these traits were unintelligent. The Eugenics Movement used multiple strategies to promote improvements of human hereditary traits, such as anti-miscegenation laws, birth control experimentation, and coercive sterilization. The relationship between the Eugenics
Movement and the population control policies that were implemented in Puerto Rico during the 20th century were that both had sterilization laws and preformed experimental birth control. In the Eugenics Movement sterilization was forced and to help inforce this Harry Laughlin created and used a Model Eugenics Sterilization Law in the US between 1903 and the 1930s. This law wanted to limit birth within inferior humans and promote birth within superior humans. In Puerto Rico sterilization laws were also enforced, sterilization became legal as well as other birth control forms. Another similarity between these two were the experimental birth control procedures being done. Puerto Rico’s population control involved multiple cases of experimental birth control and one of these cases involved the “pill.” This pill was supposed to be used as a contraceptive, but it was the first time it was introduced and was extremely powerful. It was 20 times more powerful than what women use today and many women in Puerto Rico suffered from stokes and in extreme cases death. Overall the issues surrounding birth control during the Eugenics movements and in Puerto Rico were inhumane and extremely harmful.
2. Physicians at the LACMC perceived Mexican-origin women as women who were all on welfare and this assumption was made based on their race. They felt that because they paid for them, then they should also have the right to control what happens with their bodies. These physicians had strong views on population control and therefore, they would push their patients into committing to some type of birth control such as IUD’s or the surgery involving getting their tubes tied. The LACMC physicians justified their actions of sterilization abuse by explaining that they had told their patients beforehand and that they never forced them to get any type of birth control. When in reality they would ask these women to sign papers to allow tube tying surgery while they were in labor. This is completely outrageous considering all the pain these women were in as well as all of the drugs they had given to them for labor. These women were not fully aware of what they were agreeing to and the physicians took advantage of this by using their signatures against them. The LACMC physicians kept to their argument that they did not force sterilization on these women because they had sign all of the paperwork that allowed for the surgery to take place. A form in which race, racism, and xenophobia were involved in these perceptions the physicians had with these women was that they saw them as poor and uneducated women who were on welfare. They did not care to fully know the status of these women, they instead used stereotypes to justify their actions. An example of their racism towards their patients was how they would threaten to deport them or their loved ones if they did not sign the papers to get their tubes tied. This shows how uneducated these physicians were, they believed that anyone who was Mexican was automatically an illegal immigrant and that they had just come to the United States to have their children here. This example shows how the LACMC physicians were preforming sterilization abuse with these Mexican women and it also shows how cruel they were to take away these women’s opportunity to have more children in the future.
3.
The Madrigal v. Quilligan case involved women who filed a law suit against Dr. Quilligan due to the abuse of sterilization they had undergone due to Dr. Quilligan. The Madrigal side argued that the women who had been sterilized had their civil rights violated as well as their right to bear children. While the Quilligan side argued that they had the idea that overpopulation had to be eased through the sterilization of poor women who tended to have larger families due to their ethnicity/race. The women who were on the Madrigal side of this case explained how doctors and nurses would make them sign papers without know what they were signing. An example of this is when a woman was having contractions and she was not getting the medical attention she required she asked a nurse that she needed help. The nurse responded by telling her that the only way they could help her was if she signed the papers to go into surgery for her labor. The woman signed without realizing they were the papers for her to get her tubes tied. Many women did not know that they were sterilized for years until they tried to have another child and could not. A large issue to the misunderstanding of the papers was that they were all in English which these women were not capable of reading or understanding. Of course the LACMC physicians claimed that these women were aware of what was going on to them and if they did not know, then it was their fault for not reading the papers they signed. The final decision that was made in the Madrigal v. Quilligan case was the Quilligan won and therefore the women on Madrigal’s side would not receive any commission. Although these women lost they did make awareness of this issue to other women so that the same thing would not happen to them. Not only did they receive media coverage, but they also managed to stop the LACMC to stop using federal funds for the sterilization of minors as well as provide Spanish language information at a sixth grade reading level
for the future patients to understand fully. The Madrigal v. Quilligan case did not reach the outcome everyone had hoped for, but because of the strong women who fought for their rights, they were able to help future Mexican women.
4. The Sleepy Lagoon Case was where Jose Diaz was killed near Sleepy Lagoon on the night of 1942 and his murder was never found due to unfair allegations of Mexican boys such as Hank Leyvas. Hank and his girlfriend had been attacked earlier that day so he got with his friends and decided to go to a party where he believes the guys were to get his revenge. After the ten-minute fight neighbors found Jose Diaz on the floor dying and when he was taken to the hospital he died. Hank was the prime suspect in Jose’s death because he had gone to that party looking for a fight. The police officers would beat the 22 suspects that included Hank in order to try and get them to confess to Jose’s death, but they stuck to their stories that they had not killed him. The other suspects made up the 38th street group and Hank was their supposed leader. When the guys had arrived to the party, Hank’s friends who were girls saw Jose Diaz already on the ground dying before the fight had broken out. The Sleepy Lagoon Case’s trial took three months and the jury made the verdict that 17 of the guys were found guilty in the death of Jose Diaz and Hank was sentenced to life. In 194. The form in which many young Mexican boys were picked up from the streets as suspects in the Sleepy Lagoon Case is an example of institutionalized racism because Mexican boys from 12 to 22 years old were arrested and thought of as suspects in a murder. This is institutionalized racism because the police officers only arrested Mexican boys, they completely dismissed the idea that possibly a white male could have been the murderer or Jose Diaz. The LAPD targeted Mexican boys who wore Zoot Suits and this only increased the racism in the Sleepy Lagoon Case. The Sleepy Lagoon Case was unfair in its trial as well when the judge did not allow for the defendants to shower or change because he said it showed the jury who they truly were. In my opinion he did this so that the jury would see them as criminals and it did have a negative effect on these boys lives forever.