Eugenics in Mexico

Following the Mexican Revolution, the eugenics movement gained prominence in Mexico. Seeking to change the genetic make-up of the country's population, proponents of eugenics in Mexico focused primarily on rebuilding the population, creating healthy citizens, and ameliorating the effects of perceived social ills such as alcoholism, prostitution, and venereal diseases. Mexican eugenics, at its height in the 1930s, influenced the state's health, education, and welfare policies.^[1]

Background

Global Context

During the early twentieth century, eugenics became a popular method for population control and nation building among many countries in Europe and the Americas. Proponents of the eugenics movement sought to "improve" the human race through both positive and negative eugenic practices. Positive eugenics encouraged the procreation of the "fit," while negative eugenics advocated for the implementation of more radical actions such as marriage restriction and sterilization of the "unfit."^[2] The eugenics movement was not confined to Western European countries and the U.S. By the 1930s, almost every country in Latin America had been impacted by eugenics.^[3]

Neo-Lamarckian Eugenics

Unlike other eugenics movements, those in Latin America were largely founded on the idea of Neo-Lamarckian eugenics.^[4] Neo-Lamarckian eugenics stated that the outside effects experienced by an organism throughout its lifetime changed its genetics permanently, allowing the organism to pass on these acquired traits to its offspring.^[5] In the Neo-Lamarckian genetic framework, activities such as prostitution and alcoholism could result in the degeneration of future generations, amplifying fears about the effects of certain social ills. However, this supposed genetic malleability also offered hope to certain Latin American eugenicists because it meant that social reform had the ability to transform the population in a more permanent way.^[4]

Eugenics Movement

According to scholars, eugenics in Mexico was largely preventative and focused on marriage restriction and sexual education. Leaders wanted to encourage the procreation of the "fit." The eugenics movement arrived in Mexico in the context of the widespread devastation and violence of the Mexican Revolution.^[6] The Revolution of 1910-1910 had resulted in a pronounced decline in population and a growing nationalist sentiment. After almost a decade of brutal battle, the country was seeking to rebuild not only its population, but also its national identity.^[3][7] Prostitution, alcoholism, and venereal disease were all perceived as threats to the fitness of the Mexican population. Many eugenicists sought to eliminate these social ills through control of reproduction, child-rearing, and hygiene.

Law of Familial Relations

Some of the origins of the eugenics movement can be seen in the 1917 Law of Familial Relations. While not passed at the height of the eugenics movement, this law was written with the intention of implementing population control and marriage restriction. According to the law, a man and a woman entering into marriage should have the legal aptitude to marry.^[8] The disabled and those with venereal and other diseases perceived to be hereditary should be barred from marriage so that they can not procreate and damage the family unit and the interests of the species.^[8] Among other things, the law legalized divorce, justifying it on the grounds that individuals should be able to legally separate from partners who might not be "fit" enough to reproduce.

Sex Education

A key component of Mexican eugenics was education. Pieces of the revolutionary constitution focused on public education; it was meant to be available to everyone, regardless of social standing.^[9] In addition to the push for access to public education, there was an attempt on behalf of the federal government to bring sex education into schools.^[9] A connection existed between those state efforts for education and the eugenic agenda. Those who were in positions of power in the Department of Public Healthy and the Ministry of Public Education were the same people who attended the First Mexican Congress of the Child, a conference on the application of eugenics to family building.^[10]

It was thought that sex education could prevent the degeneration of the race by eliminating certain social problems, such as syphilis, tuberculosis, and alcoholism.^[10] In the 1930s, a committee appointed by the Secretary of Public Education issued a report on the necessity of sex education in Mexico. This committee argued that sex education was an absolute necessity for healthy and normal development. The report concluded that a lack of sex education was the primary cause of negative personal habits and also responsible for the supposed decline of society.^[11]

The committee, under the Secretary of Public Education, put forth a set of recommendations to implement sex education programs in schools. The proposal for this type of educational program came with several stipulations, many of which echoed eugenic ideas. Pupils in elementary schools were to be classified according to their sex and capacities. Those who were deemed incapable should be moved to separate schools. These separate schools would be for physically, mentally, and morally abnormal students.^[11]  It would be the Department of Hygiene that had the ultimate authority of reclassification and reorganization of the abnormal. The committee's outline for sex education ended by stating that family health was the basis of the nation's "happiness" and "progress."^[11] Again, it was not uncommon for sex education and eugenic principles to be so closely linked. Many Mexican eugenicists sought to establish “educational norms."^[10]

Motherhood

The eugenics movement in Mexico had an intense focus on the role of the mother in cultivating a "fit" child. It was thought that there was an "inherent' connection between mother and child that, if cultivated properly, would ensure the future of the nation.^[6] Puericulture, an idea focused on the role that mothers played in ensuring the "proper" hygiene of the child, shaped eugenic reforms in Mexico.^[10]

By the late 1920s and early 1920s, multiple organizations and societies had been created to focus on the role of eugenics in caring for a child. The First Mexican Congress of the Child was held in 1921. Issues that were eugenic and sexual in nature were brought to the attention of the attendees, such as maternal health and the sterilization of criminals.^[12][6] In 1929, the Mexican Society of Puericulture (Sociedad Mexicana de Puericultura) emerged as another society influenced by eugenics. By this period in time, the Society of Puericulture had created a branch dedicated to eugenics. This section addressed sex education, infantile sexuality, and disease in relation to caring for a child.^[13] The government was also preoccupied with the importance of puericulture. The Public Health Department's School Hygiene Service offered childcare education classes for women, went into poor communities to educate new mothers about infant hygiene, and built playgrounds.^[12]

Sterilization

In December of 1932, the state of Veracruz passed the only eugenic sterilization law that has ever existed in Latin America. Proponents of the law advocated for it because sterilization was supposedly in the interest of the species, race, and home.^[14]

When Adalberto Tejeda returned to the Veracruz governorship in 1928, eugenics was integrated into his policy. In Tejeda’s eyes, prostitution, religious institutions, and alcoholism prevented the formation of fit national citizens.^[14] In 1930 he attempted to eliminate prostitution with Law 362. This law sanctioned the state to “locate and treat” Veracruz citizens who have been diagnosed with venereal diseases.^[14] In Jalapa, Veracruz, women were rounded up, imprisoned, and then forcibly treated for venereal disease as part of an eugenic effort to eliminate prostitution and its "negative" health effects.

Two years later, Tejeda built upon this attempt at eugenic population control and treatment with the passage of two laws. The first, Law 121, founded the Section of Eugenics and Mental Hygiene in the public health department. This division was responsible for studying the “physical diseases and defects of the human organism" that were naturally passed from parent to child. In addition, prostitutes, criminals, alcoholics, and other so-called degenerates were to be subject to statistical surveys and clinical examinations. Populations that were deemed to be threatening to society were to be monitored.^[14]

Six months after the passage of Law 121, an addendum was passed that legalized sterilization of “the insane, idiots, degenerates, or those demented to such a degree that their defect is considered incurable or hereditarily transmissible.”^[14] With the help of medical professionals, the Section of Eugenics and Mental Health was in charge of identifying people who needed to be sterilized. While this law passed, it is not clear whether or not individuals were actually sterilized due to the lack of clarity in medical and historical records.^[14]

Legacy

Although the eugenics movement was at its most influential in the early twentieth century, some eugenic ideas continued to be present in Mexico throughout the twentieth century. In the 1950s, the Public Health Department provided its employees with a genetic counseling service. In addition, the acceptance of neo-Lamarckian genetics continued among Mexican eugenicists into the 1970s.^[12] The twenty-first century has also seen strains of the early eugenics movement. Fourteen indigenous women in Guerrero were forcibly sterilized in 2001 and there have been similar accusations of the state’s sterilization abuses against indigenous women in Hidalgo. The United Nations has brought these abuses to the international stage, denouncing Mexico’s actions. In 2011, the Mexican government took steps to prevent sterilization abuse by introducing a legal measure that makes the practice punishable with prison time.^[12]

See also

• Eugenics
• History of science and technology in Mexico

Further reading

References