California tries to find and compensate victims of sterilization

About 600 people alive today cannot have children because the California government sterilized them against their will or without their knowledge, and now the state is trying to find them in order to pay them at least $15,000 in compensation.

But after a year of searching, the state approved only 51 people out of 310 applications for payment. There is a year left before the $4.5 million program is closed and the problems remain serious. State officials have turned down 103 people, closed three incomplete applications and are processing 153 more, but they say it’s difficult to verify the applications as many records have been lost or destroyed.

Two groups of people are eligible for the money: those who were sterilized by the government during the so-called eugenics movement, which peaked in the 1930s, and a smaller group who fell victim to state prisons about a decade ago.

“We try to find all the information we can, and sometimes we can only hope that someone can find more information on their own,” said Linda Gledhill, executive director of the California Victim Compensation Board, which oversees the program. “We just sometimes can’t verify what happened.”

California in 2021 became the third state to approve a forced sterilization reimbursement program, after North Carolina and Virginia. But California was the first state to also include recent victims from the state’s prison system.

The eugenics movement sought to prevent some people with mental illness or physical disabilities from having children. California had the nation’s largest forced sterilization program, sterilizing approximately 20,000 people since 1909. It was so well known that it later inspired the practice in Nazi Germany. The state did not repeal its eugenics law until 1979.

Of the 51 people who have received redress so far, only three have been sterilized during the eugenics era. With surviving victims of that time in their 80s, 90s and older, state officials sent out posters and newsletters to 1,000 qualified nursing homes and 500 libraries across the state in hopes of reaching more of them.

In May, the state also signed a $280,000 contract with Fresno-based JP Marketing to launch a social media campaign that runs through the end of 2023. The biggest push will begin this month when the state pays for TV and radio ads. in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento, which will last until October next year.

It is hoped that friends or relatives of the victims will see the advertisement and help their loved ones apply for the program. Only victims are eligible for payments. But if the victim dies after being approved but before receiving the full payment, they can nominate a beneficiary – like a family member – to receive the money.

“We take this mission of finding these people very seriously,” Gledhill said. “Nothing we can do can make up for what happened to them.”

The second group eligible for reparations includes people sterilized in California prisons. A government audit found that 144 women were sterilized between 2005 and 2013, with little evidence that they were counseled or offered alternative treatments. State legislators responded by passing a law in 2014 banning sterilization in prisons for birth control but allowing other medically necessary procedures.

It was much easier to find records confirming the identity of these victims, since their procedures were recent. State officials sent letters to inmates believed to have been sterilized urging them to apply, and put up flyers advertising the program in state prisons.

Wendy Carrillo, the Democratic member of the California Assembly who sought approval for the program, said she would ask lawmakers to extend the application deadline beyond 2023. She wants to give victims more time to apply, and she wants to expand the program to include victims who have been sterilized at county hospitals. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors issued an apology in 2018 after more than 200 women were sterilized at Los Angeles-USC Medical Center between 1968 and 1974.

“I’m not thrilled with the numbers we’re seeing so far, but I believe that when we get out of COVID and start operating at full capacity – that means we can have community meetings and in-person meetings and more direct contact, except in front of the computer and through Zoom – everything will change, ”she said.

Sterilized prisoners remain difficult to find, Gledhill said. “This is a population that may not have much confidence in the government given what happened to them.”

One such person is Moonlight Pulido, who was serving a life sentence for attempted murder. While in prison in 2005, Pulido said a doctor told her he needed to remove two “growths” that could be cancer. She signed the form and had the operation. Later, something went wrong. She was constantly sweating and was out of her mind. She asked the nurse, who told her that she had had a total hysterectomy, a procedure that removes the uterus and cervix, and sometimes other parts of the reproductive system.

Pulido was shocked. She was 41 at the time, had children, and was serving a life sentence. But she said that the doctor had deprived her of the right to start a new family, which deeply hurt her.

“I am a Native American and we women are tied to Mother Earth. We are the only givers of life, we are the only ones who can give life, and he stole that blessing from me,” she said. “I felt less than a woman.”

Pulido was released on parole in January 2022. Working with the advocacy group Coalition of Women Prisoners, she filed for damages and was approved for a $15,000 payment.

“I sat there, looked at it and cried. I cried because I had never had so much money in my life,” she said.

Pulido could get more money. The state has $4.5 million in damages, and whatever is left after the program ends will be divided equally among the approved victims.

Pulido said she used some of the money to fix a car she was given as a gift when she got out of jail. She tries to save the others. Known as DeAnna Henderson for most of her life, Pulido said she changed her name shortly before her release from prison, drawing inspiration from looking at the moon outside her cell window.

“DeAnna was a very resentful little girl who had a lot of resentment and I was tired of carrying it all around with me,” she said. “I have lived in darkness for so long that I want to be part of the light that will become part of my name.”

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This article has corrected the name of the government agency in charge of the program and the month that California signed a marketing contract to promote the program. The agency is called the California Victims Compensation Board, not the California Victims Compensation Board. The contract was signed in May, not October. In addition, this story corrects for the number of victims who were paid through the second link. Approved payments to 51 people.