Pure America Quotes

“When can we say we have earned the right to move on? My answer is simple: When it is just as easy to give a person a second chance as it is to give one to a building.”
― Elizabeth Catte, Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia

“If every person who had been sterilized at Western State during DeJarnette's tenure as superintendent - a total he estimated to be 1,205 patients - were still alive and received compensation, their collective payout of $30,125000 would still be $219,875,000 lower than what investors think the redeveloped property will be worth some day. If all twenty-eight people who have received compensation collectively pooled their money today, they could purchase at most three condominiums at Western State's Villages at Staunton.”
― Elizabeth Catte, Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia

“People will ask me, in good and bad faith, what can be done about this. If it helps, I give my solemn promise not to crash weddings at Western State, complaining about sterilizations and patient labor. I am not calling for the museumification of a commercial development, because that would be a waste of time. I am a realist. The deed is done. But in a city and state that celebrates the past, would it really be so taxing to live in the truth that the world around us is connected to the lives, labor, and loss of an exploited people?”
― Elizabeth Catte, Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia

“an architecturally sublime honey trap for boomers”
― Elizabeth Catte, Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia