America's Ugly History With Selective Sterilization Against Women of Color

Last week, Dawn Wooten became the latest whistleblower regarding the treatment of migrants inside US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities. A former detention center nurse, Wooten filed a claim with the Department of Homeland Security claiming that mass hysterectomies were being performed on women without their full consent — and sometimes, without their knowledge.

These allegations rightfully shocked many, as politicians, celebrities, and social media users drew comparisons between ICE conditions and Nazi Germany. But forced sterilization in America is not a random imitation of Nazi's eugenic history; it's a vile continuation of our own. In fact, it was California's mass sterilization in the 1920s, then recorded by the Eugenics Record Office, that in part helped form Hilter's blueprint for racial purification in Germany. Eugenics is the belief that the human species can be improved by preselecting those with "desirable" traits to reproduce in an effort to "breed out" disease, criminal traits, and mental illness.

In the early 1900s, sterilization in America thrived through federally funded programs used to control growing Asian and Mexican immigrant populations in...