SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — About 600 people alive today are unable to have children because the California government sterilized them against their will or without their knowledge, and now the state is trying to find them so they can each receive at least $15,000 able to pay for reparations.
But after a year of searching, the state has only approved 51 people for payments out of 310 applications. There is still a year to watch before the $4.5 million program closes and challenges remain. State officials have denied 103 people, closed three incomplete applications and processed 153 others – but they say it is difficult to verify the applications because much data has 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 that peaked in the 1930s, and a smaller group who became victims in state prisons about a decade ago.
“We try to find all the information we can, and sometimes we just have to hope that maybe someone can find more detailed information themselves,” said Lynda Gledhill, executive officer of the California Victims’ Compensation Board that oversees the program. “We sometimes can’t verify what happened.”
California became the third state to approve a forced sterilization recovery program in 2021, alongside North Carolina and Virginia. But California was the first state to take in more recent victims from its state prison system as well.
The eugenics movement tried to prevent some people with mental illness or physical disabilities from having children. California had the nation’s largest forced sterilization program, sterilizing about 20,000 people starting in 1909. It was so well known that it later inspired practices in Nazi Germany. The state only repealed the eugenics law in 1979.
Of the 45 people approved for reparations to date, only three were sterilized during the eugenics era. With survivors of the era in their 80s, 90s and older, state officials have sent posters and factsheets to 1,000 skilled nursing homes and 500 libraries in the state in hopes of reaching more of them.
The state also signed a $280,000 contract in October with Fresno-based JP Marketing to launch a social media campaign that will run through the end of 2023. The biggest push will begin this month, when the state will pay for TV and radio ads. in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento that runs through October.
The hope is that victims’ friends or relatives will see the ads and help their loved one sign up for the program. Only victims are eligible for benefits. But if a victim dies after being approved but before receiving payment in full, they can designate a beneficiary, such as a family member, to receive the money.
“We take that mission very seriously to find these people,” Gledhill said. “Nothing we can do can make up for what happened to them.”
The second group of people eligible for reparations were sterilized in California prisons. A state audit found that between 2005 and 2013, 144 women were sterilized with little or no evidence that they were being counseled or offered alternative treatments. State lawmakers responded by passing a law in 2014 to ban sterilizations in prison for birth control while still allowing other medically necessary procedures.
It was much easier to find documents verifying these victims since their procedures took place recently. State officials have sent letters to inmates believed to have been sterilized urging them to apply, while also posting fliers in state prisons promoting the program.
Wendy Carrillo, a Democratic member of the California Assembly who pushed for the program to be approved, said she will ask lawmakers to extend the application deadline beyond 2023. She wants to give victims more time to apply, and she wants it expand program to include victims who were sterilized in county-funded hospitals. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors apologized in 2018 after more than 200 women were sterilized at the Los Angeles-USC Medical Center between 1968 and 1974.
“I’m not happy with the numbers we’re seeing so far, but I believe as we move out of COVID and we start operating at full capacity — which means we’ll be able to have community gatherings and face-to-face meetings. meetings and more direct outreach other than behind a computer and via Zoom – things will change,” she said.
Finding sterilized inmates is still a challenge, Gledhill said. “It’s a population that may not trust the government very much given what has happened to them.”
One of those people is Moonlight Pulido, who was serving a life sentence for attempted first degree murder. While in prison in 2005, Pulido said a doctor told her to remove two “growths” that could be cancerous. She signed a form and had surgery. Later something didn’t feel right. She was constantly sweating and not feeling herself. She asked a nurse, who told her she’d had a full hysterectomy, a procedure that removes the uterus and cervix, and sometimes other parts of the reproductive system.
Pulido was shocked. She was 41 years old at the time, already had children and was serving a life sentence. But she said the doctor had given her the right to have another family – something that deeply affected her.
“I am Native American, and we as women are grounded on Mother Earth. We are the only life givers, 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 organization Coalition for Women Prisoners, she asked for reparations and was paid $15,000.
“I sat there and I looked at it and I cried. I cried because I’ve never had so much money in my life,” she said.
Pulido could get more money. The state has $4.5 million for reparations and whatever is left over when the program ends will be divided equally among the approved victims.
Pulido said she spent some of the money fixing up a car someone gave her when she got out of jail. She tries to save the rest. Known as DeAnna Henderson for most of her life, Pulido said she changed her name shortly before she was released from prison — inspired by staring at the moon outside her cell window.
“DeAnna was a very hurt girl who carried a lot of hurt baggage, and I got tired of lugging all that around,” she said. “I have lived in darkness for so long that I want to be part of the light that will be part of my name.”
