Here Is Where: Discovering America's Great Forgotten History

by Andrew Carroll

I meant what I said; I’m honestly not picking on Sonoma or suggesting it should advertise the more chilling aspects of its past, but it is a significant historic site. California wasn’t the first state to enact laws encouraging forced sterilizations (that would be Indiana, in 1907, followed by the majority of American states), but once the legislative green light blinked go in 1909, the state quickly made up for lost time and eventually surpassed all others. Out of sixty thousand involuntary sterilizations nationwide, one-third to a half of them were performed in California. And Sonoma bears the sad distinction of having carried out more than any other similar facility. With its neoclassical buildings and