We join the world in mourning the lives of Daoyou Feng, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Paul Andre Michels, Soon Chung Park, Xiaojie Tan, Delaina Ashley Yaun, and Yong Ae Yue, who were murdered on March 16 by a violent gunman in a racially-motivated attack in Atlanta. We hope for a speedy recovery for Elcias Hernandez-Ortiz, who was injured during this act of terror. We condemn xenophobia, racism, harassment, and violence against Asians, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, and other marginalized groups.

While an individual perpetrated this violent act, we recognize how discrimination and racism pervades medical and scientific institutions, whether through ideologies of  “race betterment” and eugenics or pernicious and racialized concepts of health, normalcy, sexuality, and perfection. These ideologies are rooted in a long history of institutionalized violence and discrimination against Asians, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders in the U.S., dating back to policies such as the Page Act of 1875, which hypersexualized Chinese women and barred their entry into the country. As researchers, our work documents the role that racism and unfettered violence has played in justifying the diminishment of the reproductive autonomy of communities of color, immigrants, disabled persons, and LGBT+ individuals.

The reproductive justice movement is a response to violence, racism, and state control of bodily autonomy. It demands not only the right to have or not have children but also the human right to exist in safe environments regardless of race, ethnicity, class, gender, ability, and sexuality. Through our scholarship, we envision a world that adheres to the principles of reproductive justice. Attaining reproductive justice requires us to stand in solidarity against xenophobia, racism, classism, and anti-Asian violence. The racialized misogyny apparent in the Atlanta shooting is a direct result of systemic racism, white supremacy, and oversexualization and racial stereotyping of Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander women in particular.

In solidarity, we redouble our commitments to:

• Continue our research highlighting the history of eugenics and how it targets and impacts communities of color, including Asians, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders
• Amplify and highlight marginalized voices of people and communities impacted by reproductive injustice
• Develop accessible platforms to disseminate our scholarship and provide educational resources
• Support the continued intervention and acknowledgement of eugenic practices in the United States at state and institutional levels, including redress and reparations for involuntary sterilization
• Highlight the work of scholars of color that address the issues of race, reproduction, eugenics, violence, and sexual autonomy and injustice

The following resources provide further information, education, and aid:

• Organizations:
  • ​Asian Americans Advancing Justice
  • Forward Together (formerly Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice)
  • National Asian and Pacific American Women's Forum
  • Red Canary Song
• Stats:
  • PEW Trend on Rise of Black/Asian-American Discrimination
  • Stop AAPI Hate National Report
• Further Reading and Resources:
  • Black Women Radicals and the Asian American Feminist Collective, “Black and Asian American Feminist Solidarities: A Reading List,” Black Women Radicals. 
  • Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Antiracist Toolkit, University of North Carolina, 4 June 2020. Focuses on the action areas of educating and assessing ourselves, examining and revising our work, and enacting change.
  • Harmeet Kaur, “Fetishized, Sexualized and Marginalized, Asian Women are Uniquely Vulnerable to Violence,” CNN, 17 March 2021.
  • Jennifer Ho, “Anti-Asian Racism and COVID-19,” Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine,16 July 2020.
  • Howard Markel and Alexandra Minna Stern, “Which Face? Whose Nation?: Immigration, Public Health, and the Construction of Disease at America's Ports and Borders, 1891–1928,” American Behavioral Scientist, June 1999.
  • Natalia Molina, Fit to Be Citizens: Public Health and Race in Los Angeles, 1879–1939, University of California Press, 2006.
  • Mae Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America, Princeton University Press, 2014.
  • Uuganaa Ramsay, “The Meaning of Mongol,” BBC, 23 November 2014.
  • Nayan Shah, Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco's Chinatown, University of California Press, 2001.
  • Christine R. Yano and Jennifer Pan, “Coronavirus and Racism: Asian-Americans in the Crossfire,” Asia Matters: Beyond the Headlines, 26 July 2020.
  • Christine R. Yano, “Racing the Pandemic: Anti-Asian Racism amid COVID-19,” from The Pandemic: Perspectives on Asia, Vinayak Chaturvedi, ed., 2020.

Recent and Upcoming Talks

Kate O'Connor. "Madness in Michigan: Eugenic Sterilization in Michigan's State Mental Hospitals, 1929–1952," in "Eugenic and Racial Thinking." American Association for the History of Medicine. 14 May 2021. Online.

Belly of the Beast Film Screening and Roundtable Discussion. University of Iowa. 28 March 2021 – 3 April 2021; Roundtable 30 March 2021, 7 PM CST. Online.

Jacqueline Wernimont. "Possibilities and Perils of Collections as Data: Lessons from Eugenic Rubicon." Louisiana Digital Library as Data Speaker Series. 14 December 2020. Online.

Marie Kaniecki, "California's 20th Century Eugenic Sterilization Program: Patterns of Coercive Sterilization Among Asian Immigrants," in "1103 — The Demography of Race and Racism in the American Past." PAA 2021 Annual Meeting. 5–8 May 2021. Online.

Natalie Lira, Venus Gines, and Azadeh Shahshahani. Dignidad para migrantes Town Hall: A discussion on eugenics, health injustices and human rights violations at U.S. ICE detention centers. 6 October 2020. 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM EST. Online.

Select Media Coverage

News, articles, and opinion pieces related to, referencing, or utilizing  the project.

Andrea Cohen. "Autonomy, Birth Control, and Intersectionality: Women's Ability to Control Their Own Bodies." Undergraduate thesis, Ohio State University (May 2021).

Kearby Stiles. "The Disparities of the Marginalized: Focusing Race and Queerness in Science and Medicine." Honors thesis, Murray State University (Spring 2021).

National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), Division of Viral Diseases. "Healthy Equity Considerations and Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 19 April 2021. 

Holly A. McKenzie, Colleen Varcoe, Dory Nason, Betty McKenna, Karen Lawford, Mary-Ellen Kelm, Cassandra Opikokew Wajuntah, Laverne Gervais, Jannica Hoskins, Jacqueline Anaquod, Jasmond Murdock, Rebecca Murdock, Katryna Smith, Jillian Arkles, and Sharon Acoose. "Indigenous Women Resisting Colonial Policies, Practices and Reproductive Coercion." (7 April 2021).

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Scholarly Publications

Peer-reviewed monographs, reports, and articles by research team members.

Alexandra Minna Stern. "Forced sterilization policies in the US targeted minorities and those with disabilities – and lasted into the 21st century." The Conversation. 26 August 2020.

Kerime Alejo, Ivan Saucedo, Fatima Valerio, and Dr.  Natalie Lira. "Behind the Board: Eugenic Sterilizations in North Carolina." 5 June 2020.
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Nicole L. Novak, Natalie Lira, Kate E. O'Connor, Siobán D. Harlow, Sharon L. R. Kardia, and Alexandra Minna Stern. "Disproportionate Sterilization of Latinos Under California's Eugenic Sterilization Program, 1920–1945." American Journal of Public Health 108, No. 5. May 2018. 611–613.

Alexandra Minna Stern, Nicole L. Novak, Natalie Lira, Kate E. O’Connor, Siobán D. Harlow, and Sharon L. R. Kardia. "California’s Sterilization Survivors: An Estimate and Call for Redress." American Journal of Public Health 107, No. 1. January 2017. 50–54.

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