Fertile Matters: The Politics of Mexican-Origin Women's Reproduction

Two. The Twin Problems of Overpopulation and Immigration in 1970s California

Chapter Two The Twin Problems of Overpopulation and Immigration in 1970s California W hen the physicians at lacmc identified Mexican-origin women as excessively fertile and as prime candidates for sterilization, they were defining a key “social problem” of the 1970s and its solution. Indeed, during the 1960s and 1970s a host of interests converged that collectively created a watershed period in the social construction of Mexican-origin women’s fertility as problematic. In addition, several national discourses and political controversies flourished during this pivotal period, all of which defined new social problems. Although these problems are sometimes understood as separate social issues, each attracting different constituencies with often contradictory claims, the interrelationships between them were particularly evident during the 1970s in the state of California, the geographical focus for this study. The intersection there of the immigration and overpopulation issues and the ensuing discourses were sharp and consequential. In my discussion of the various approaches to population and immigration control, I introduce a number of primary actors involved in policy debates and controversies , each of whom contributed to the evolving depiction of women of Mexican origin as particularly problematic child bearers. The Population Bomb Prior to 1945, the dominant population-related anxiety in the United States was about underpopulation (or race suicide, in its eugenical formulation), and governmental leaders did not view other countries’ population problems as relevant to demanding U.S. interests. Over time demographers introduced evidence of “overpopulation” in the United States to the public, often stressing the motifs of eugenic stability and the underscored distinctions between the moderate, restrained “us” and the teeming, profligate “them.”1 T4292.indb 14 T4292.indb 14 7/27/07 7:22:34 AM 7/27/07 7:22:34 AM overpopulation and immigration in 1970s california 15 The U.S. government paid increasing attention to the growth of the world’s population after World War II.2 Experts initially considered overpopulation as a problem primarily attributable to underdeveloped nations, with growth in Asia, Latin America, and Africa drawing particular attention. By the mid-1960s world population growth became a “measurable, publicly documented, economically defined problem of the third world” and an increasing concern of foreign policy experts.3 While population research was primarily initiated and supported by private foundations and organizations, by the late 1960s government monies were directly funneled to studies that addressed these issues.4 According to Wilmoth and Ball (1995), foundations “contributed to the development of a cadre of scientific professionals who could offer expert advice on questions of population, economic development, and family planning.”5 Betsey Hartmann elaborates: Beginning in the 1950s large amounts of money began to flow into U.S. universities from the Ford Foundation, the Population Council, and the Rockefellers to finance population studies, facilitating the development of what some observers have called a “powerful cult of population control” in U.S. academia. Government funding followed soon thereafter, until, with few exceptions, demography and related social sciences came to serve the population establishment’s goal of promoting the machine model of family planning as the solution to this population “crisis.”6 Although a 1958 annual report of the Population Council, founded in 1952, argued that “even in the United States, present rates of growth may well handicap education and cultural advances and make more difficult the adjustments to the rapid rate of urbanization,” governmental authorities were not sharply focused on such concerns at this point.7 It was not until the late 1960s and early 1970s that the American public turned its attention to the issue of population growth within the United States, a development primarily triggered by a growing concern about the environmental and social ramifications of “overpopulation.” A decade later policymakers, government officials, and population control advocates directed considerable effort toward implementing a national population policy, justified by the new internationalist initiative and an increased understanding of the population issue.8 The population movement was comprised of a variety of invested groups—citizen-activists, ecologists, scientists, and governmental officials among them.9 In particular many population control activists stressed that T4292.indb 15 T4292.indb 15 7/27/07 7:22:35 AM 7/27/07 7:22:35 AM fertile matters 16 increased population growth would have disastrous consequences on both the nation’s natural resources and the operation of the federal government, ultimately decreasing the quality of life for American citizens. The Commission on Population Growth and...