{"id":3478,"date":"2023-01-05T03:44:32","date_gmt":"2023-01-05T09:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=3478"},"modified":"2023-03-16T21:35:49","modified_gmt":"2023-03-17T02:35:49","slug":"california-trying-to-find-compensate-sterilization-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=3478","title":{"rendered":"California trying to find, compensate sterilization victims<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) \u2014 About 600 people alive today can\u2019t have children because California\u2019s government sterilized them either against their will or without their knowledge, and now the state is trying to find them so it can pay them at least $15,000 each in reparations.
\nBut after a year of searching, the state has approved just 51 people for payments out of 310 applications. There\u2019s one year left to look before the $4.5 million program shuts down and the challenges remain steep. State officials have denied 103 people, closed three incomplete applications and are processing 153 others \u2014 but they say it\u2019s difficult to verify the applications as many records have been lost or destroyed.
\nTwo groups of people are eligible for the money: Those sterilized by the government during the so-called eugenics movement that peaked during the 1930s and a smaller group who were victimized while in state prisons about a decade ago.
\n\u201cWe try to find all the information we can and sometimes we just have to hope that somebody maybe can find more detailed information on their own,\u201d said Lynda Gledhill, executive officer of the California Victims\u2019 Compensation Board that oversees the program. \u201cWe\u2019re just sometimes not able to verify what happened.\u201d
\nCalifornia in 2021 was the third state to approve a reparations program for forced sterilizations, joining North Carolina and Virginia. But California was the first state to also include more recent victims from its state prison system.
\nThe eugenics movement sought to prevent some people with mental illness or physical disabilities from being able to have children. California had the nation\u2019s largest forced sterilization program, sterilizing about 20,000 people beginning in 1909. It was so well known that it later\u00a0inspired practices in Nazi Germany. The state did not repeal its eugenics law until 1979.
\nOf the 45 people approved for reparations so far, just three were sterilized during the eugenics era. With surviving victims from that time in their 80s, 90s and beyond, state officials have sent posters and fact sheets to 1,000 skilled nursing homes and 500 libraries across the state in hopes of reaching more of them.
\nThe state also signed a $280,000 contract in October with JP Marketing, based in Fresno, 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 will run through next October.<\/p>\n

Apnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) \u2014 About 600 people alive today can\u2019t have children because California\u2019s government sterilized them either against their will or without their knowledge, and now the state is trying to find them so it can pay them at least $15,000 each in reparations. But after a year of searching, the state has approved […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1189,3622,1268,3064,3623,1444,1445,3624],"class_list":["post-3478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-california","tag-compensation","tag-government","tag-prisons","tag-sterilization","tag-them","tag-trying","tag-victims"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3478"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7810,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3478\/revisions\/7810"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}