Eugenic Nation Read online

  Eugenic Nation

  AMERICAN CROSSROADS

  Edited by Earl Lewis, George Lipsitz, Peggy Pascoe, George Sánchez, and Dana Takagi

  1. Border Matters: Remapping American Cultural Studies, by José David Saldívar

  2. The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture, by Neil Foley

  3. Indians in the Making: Ethnic Relations and Indian Identities around Puget Sound, by Alexandra Harmon

  4. Aztlán and Viet Nam: Chicano and Chicana Experiences of the War, edited by George Mariscal

  5. Immigration and the Political Economy of Home: West Indian Brooklyn and American Indian Minneapolis, 1945–1992, by Rachel Buff

  6. Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East, 1945–2000, by Melani McAlister

  7. Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco’s Chinatown, by Nayan Shah

  8. Japanese American Celebration and Conflict: A History of Ethnic Identity and Festival, 1934–1990, by Lon Kurashige

  9. American Sensations: Class, Empire, and the Production of Popular Culture, by Shelley Streeby

  10. Colored White: Transcending the Racial Past, by David R. Roediger

  11. Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico, by Laura Briggs

  12. meXicana Encounters: The Making of Social Identities on the Borderlands, by Rosa Linda Fregoso

  13. Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles, by Eric Avila

  14. Ties That Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom, by Tiya Miles

  15. Cultural Moves: African Americans and the Politics of Representation, by Herman S. Gray

  16. Emancipation Betrayed: The Hidden History of Black Organizing and White Violence in Florida from Reconstruction to the Bloody Election of 1920, by Paul Ortiz

  17. Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America, by Alexandra Minna Stern

  18. Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America, by Josh Kun

  19. Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left: Radical Activism in Southern California, by Laura Pulido

  Eugenic Nation

  Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America

  Alexandra Minna Stern

  University of California Press

  Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

  University of California Press, Ltd.

  London, England

  © 2005 by The Regents of the University of California

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Stern, Alexandra.

  Eugenic nation : faults and frontiers of better breeding in modern America / Alexandra Minna Stern.

  p. cm.—(American crossroads ; 17)

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 0-520-24443-5 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 0-520-24444-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  1. Eugenics—United States—History. 2. Eugenics—California—History. I. Title. II. Series.

  HQ755.5.U5S84 2005

  363.9′2′09794—dc22

  2004021041

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This book is printed on New Leaf EcoBook 60, containing 60% post-consumer waste, processed chlorine free; 30% de-inked recycled fiber, elemental chlorine free; and 10% FSC-certified virgin fiber, totally chlorine free. EcoBook 60 is acid-free and meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/ASTM D5634–01 (Permanence of Paper).

  Contents

  List of Illustrations

  Acknowledgments

  List of Abbreviations

  Introduction

  1. Race Betterment and Tropical Medicine in Imperial San Francisco

  2. Quarantine and Eugenic Gatekeeping on the U.S.-Mexican Border

  3. Instituting Eugenics in California

  4. California’s Eugenic Landscapes

  5. Centering Eugenics on the Family

  6. Contesting Hereditarianism: Reassessing the 1960s

  Epilogue

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  Illustrations

  1. Demonstration models for controlling plague, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915

  2. Entrance to the Race Betterment Exhibit, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915

  3. Mexicans waiting to be disinfected at El Paso Street Bridge, 1917

  4. Mexican man being administered the smallpox vaccination at El Paso immigration station, 1917

  5. Calculation of cumulative costs saved by deportations from California state institutions, 1930

  6. Dedication of Charles M. Goethe Arboretum, 1961

  7. Time line accompanying redwood slice at the Charles M. Goethe Arboretum

  8. Woman entering American Institute of Family Relations office, 1952

  9. Paul Popenoe demonstrating the Johnson Temperament Analysis Test

  10. Protest in Los Angeles against forced sterilizations, 1974

  Acknowledgments

  A book is a planned itinerary that yields unexpected journeys and much serendipity. That is certainly the case with this project, which began in a different form as a dissertation at the University of Chicago, where I was very fortunate to have the learned and inspiring guidance of George Chauncey, Friedrich Katz, Sander Gilman, and, from afar, Patricia Seed. Since that formative period, I have traveled to many places to conduct further research and moved across the country twice.

  A knowledgeable archivist can be a historian’s greatest ally, and I thank all those who assisted me with the research for this book. In particular, I would like to acknowledge Claudia Rivers of the University of Texas at El Paso, Roy Goodman of the American Philosophical Society, Georgiana White and Sheila O’Neill of the California State University at Sacramento, Carol Bowers and Leslie Shores at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming, Marian L. Smith of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Jim Coplan of the Commonwealth Club of California, and Theresa Salazar and Walter Brem of the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley for their generosity, hospitability, and expertise.

  Friends and colleagues have enriched my life enormously during the preparation of this book. They have challenged me to pursue new questions, provided solace in difficult times, and brought much joy and laughter. Tony Platt, Beth Haas, Johanna Schoen, Molly Ladd-Taylor, and Vicki Ruiz read the manuscript in its entirety; I am indebted to them for their incisive comments. Peggy Pascoe has been a stellar series editor and has nurtured this project from the beginning. Howard Markel read multiple versions of every chapter and always provided constructive criticism. Many other people have taken time to read parts of this book or helped me along in the writing process. They include Carol Karlsen, Rob Buffington, Ann Stoler, Laura Briggs, Nayan Shah, George Lipsitz, Anne-Emanuelle Birn, Steven Palmer, Penny Von Eschen, Gina Morantz-Sanchez, Gabriela Arredondo, Ernie Chavez, Marty Pernick, John Carson, Diane Paul, Sam Truett, Terri Koreck, Elliott Young, Emma Pérez, Dana Frank, Maria Montoya, Nancy Chen, Ellen Herman, Mary Joe Gilpin, John Gilpin, Mary Parsons, Mary Lou Stern, Andrew Stern, Barbara Berglund, Jennifer Robertson, Ilona Katzew, Paul Kramer, and Paul Lombardo.

  The Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School has been the ideal environment for thinking about the implications of the history explored in this book. I thank Allen Lichter, David Bloom, Howard Markel, and Tim Johnson for their commitment to medical humanities and history. I have also benefited greatly from the intellectual engagement of colleagues in the American Culture program and the Science, Technology, and Society program. I would like to ack
nowledge the excellent research assistance of José Amador and Shawn Kimmel, as well as the top-notch administrative skills of Jeff Clevenger. Finally, many thanks to the supportive scholars and friends at the University of California at Santa Cruz, especially those affiliated with the Chicano Latino Research Center.

  Envisioning and enacting the transformation of manuscript into book would not have been possible without the dynamism and professionalism of my editor, Monica McCormick, and her editorial assistant, Randy Heyman. It was a pleasure to work closely with both of them. John Thompson, of Biomedical Communications at the University of Michigan, applied his digital and design skills to optimize the images in this book.

  Grants and fellowships enabled me to conduct much of the research for this project. These included an American Heritage Center travel grant, two University of California Committee on Research grants, a Social Science Research Council International Migration Fellowship, an Albert J. Beveridge Grant from the American Historical Association, a Mellon travel grant from the University of Chicago, and a Fulbright Hays / U.S. Department of Education fellowship.

  Finally, my deepest gratitude is to my parents, Andrew and Mary Lou Stern, whose unconditional love and support has sustained me for almost forty years, and to my life partner, Terri Koreck, who every day manages to bring magic out of the mundane.

  Portions of earlier versions of chapter 2 appeared in “Nationalism on the Line: Masculinity, Race, and the Creation of the Border Patrol, 1910–1940,” in Samuel Truett and Elliott Young, eds., Continental Crossroads: Remapping U.S.-Mexico Borderlands History (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2004), 299–323, and “Buildings, Boundaries, and Blood: Medicalization and Nation-Building on the U.S.-Mexico Border,” Hispanic American Historical Review 79, no. 1 (1999): 41–81. Both are used courtesy of Duke University Press.

  The production of this book was supported by a Publication Subvention Award from the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Michigan.

  Abbreviations

  ABA

  American Breeders’ Association

  AES

  American Eugenics Society

  AID

  artificial insemination with donor sperm

  AIFR

  American Institute of Family Relations

  ASHA

  American Social Hygiene Association

  CBJR

  California Bureau of Juvenile Research

  CCC

  Commonwealth Club of California

  CSUS

  California State University at Sacramento

  ERO

  Eugenics Record Office

  ESNC

  Eugenics Society of Northern California

  HBF

  Human Betterment Foundation

  HEW

  U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare

  INS

  U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service

  ISC

  Immigration Study Commission

  IQ

  intelligence quotient

  JTA

  Johnson Temperament Analysis Test

  M-F Test

  Male-Female Test

  MSAFP

  maternal serum alpha-fetoprotein

  NAACP

  National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

  NCHO

  National Chicano Health Organization

  OEO

  Office of Economic Opportunity

  PPIE

  Panama-Pacific International Exposition

  SNCC

  Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

  SNCRB

  Second National Conference on Race Betterment

  UNESCO

  United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

  USPHS

  U.S. Public Health Service

  ZPG

  Zero Population Growth

  Introduction

  At a ceremony held in Oregon’s capitol building in December 2002, Governor John Kitzhaber stood before an overflowing crowd and apologized for the more than twenty-six hundred sterilizations performed in that state between 1917 and 1983.1 Since the summer, Kitzhaber had been under mounting pressure from a vocal coalition of mental health advocates, disability rights groups, and sterilization victims to express public remorse for what he referred to at the December event as the “misdeeds that resulted from widespread misconceptions, ignorance and bigotry.”2 Kitzhaber’s apology was the second in a series initiated by Virginia’s governor, Mark Warner, who in May 2002 deemed his commonwealth’s sterilization program “a shameful effort in which state government should never have been involved.”3 The governors of North Carolina, South Carolina, and California followed suit, delivering similar statements of regret over the next twelve months. Tangible and symbolic gestures usually accompanied these apologies. In Virginia, for example, two of the approximately eight thousand people sterilized between 1924 and the 1970s unveiled a highway marker recognizing the injustice suffered by Carrie Buck. The first person affected by Virginia’s sterilization law, Buck was the plaintiff in Buck v. Bell, the infamous 1927 U.S. Supreme Court case in which the justices overwhelmingly upheld the constitutionality of involuntary sterilization. In Oregon, acknowledging that a “great wrong” had been done “in accordance with eugenics,” Kitzhaber designated December 10 as Human Rights Day, a day on which henceforth “we will affirm the value of every human being.”4 North Carolina’s governor, Mike Easley, approved compensation, in the form of health care and education benefits, to any living resident of the seventy-six hundred sterilized by the state between 1929 and 1974.

  Although these five states represent a fraction of the thirty-three that had sterilization laws on the books at some point in the twentieth century, their actions are noteworthy. For many victims, these apologies assuaged the pain and indignity they had endured after forced operations. As public utterances predicated on an awareness of the past, the governors’ statements helped to foster valuable historical research into the personal stories of those sterilized and the activities of the responsible health and welfare agencies. They also sparked important bioethical discussions in legislative, university, and community forums about the potential for medical abuse and miscommunication, particularly with regard to genetic and reproductive technologies.

  Yet these apologies can close rather than open retrospective windows and they raise serious questions about how we remember—and forget—eugenics. By drawing a fairly stark line between an abhorrent and benighted chapter of pseudoscience in which misguided authorities were ensnared by Nazi-inspired ideas of racial hygiene and a much savvier and sagacious present in which such mistakes will not be repeated, the apologies can create a specious sense of security, even hubris. As admonitions against future medical coercion or exploitation, such statements are well-meaning reminders at best and, in a post–Cold War global era defined by a dense traffic of restitutive and contritional pronouncements, vacuous truisms at worst.5 Most worrisome from a historian’s perspective, they can make it more difficult to extract eugenics from the shadow of Nazism. Without doubt, familiarity with German racial hygiene is imperative to grasp the international and philosophical milieu in which eugenics arose and to understand how medical abuse can converge with dictatorial politics to produce genocide.6 The atrocities of the Final Solution should never be minimized. Nonetheless, the looming presence of the Holocaust in our collective memory, into which context the apologies must be placed, has helped to privilege renditions and narratives of eugenics in America that, ultimately, flatten and simplify the historical terrain.7 Eugenic Nation seeks to explore continuities, permutations, and ramifications of better breeding in the United States that have been obscured; in so doing, it proposes a revised chronology, decenters the vantage point from which the story is often told, and excavates a set of topics that have rarely received more than a passing nod.

  There are several reasons to challenge the prevailing histo
rical understanding of eugenics and its underlying assumptions about time, place, and thematic relevance. First, the declension narrative of Nazism is so potent and seductive that it has often served as the principal lens through which much U.S. scholarship has framed eugenics. There is a deep emotional charge to associating any practice or person with Nazism, and when writing history, the recitation of such connections can stand in for careful analysis of historical contingencies and can verge on sensationalism. Of course, it is vital to document the parallels between the United States and Germany and acknowledge the shared historical trajectories of these two countries.8 Several prominent U.S. eugenicists corresponded regularly with their German counterparts, eugenic and lay periodicals applauded the passage in the 1930s of Nazi marriage and sterilization laws (which were partly derived from American models), and at least two eugenicists received honorary degrees from German universities during the rise of fascism.9 By the eve of Hitler’s defeat, leading U.S. scientists, journalists, and politicians had positioned themselves against Nazi-style doctrines of racial superiority and noted anthropologists were jettisoning biological determinism and embracing cultural explanations of human difference.10 In 1952, a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) committee that included well-known American geneticists issued a far-reaching statement on the falsity of the “race concept.”11

  Given that eugenics in the United States is frequently aligned with scientific racism, the fall of Nazism and the abandonment of overt racial categories by many postwar eugenicists have encouraged the view that eugenics disappeared, or at least languished, in the 1940s. Hereditarianism, however, did not perish after World War II; it was repackaged. Exhibiting more flexibility than their predecessors, postwar eugenicists partly accepted the role of extrinsic factors and incorporated tenets from demography, sex research, psychoanalysis, and anthropology into their repertoires. Guided by experiments in endocrinology and human genetics that were examining hormonal function, sex selection, and chromosomal patterns, and increasingly attentive to theories of polygenic disease causation and genetic susceptibility, most postwar eugenicists let environmental precipitants in the door without, however, relinquishing the ultimate primacy of heredity.12