Healing Histories Project (HHP) stands in resistance to genocide and fascist control. Slashes in Medicaid, the defunding of disaster relief programs, increased ICE funding, the attack on public health, the US-funded assault on Palestine, the increased militarization of local police in US cities like Los Angeles, Washington DC & Baltimore, and the commitment to take protected lands, many which are currently protected by indigenous people, into new mining and forestry contracts are just one small part of the violence that we currently face.
In all these things, we at HHP recognize them for what they are: eugenics. From the inception of the concept by Francis Galton in 1883—a man who sought to stop reproduction by “feebleminded” people- to a 2025 “natal conference” organized by Population Wellbeing Initiative openly promoting pronatalism*, population control and the superiority of the white race in Austin TX—we situate recent events along the long line of attempts to wipe away the memory and history of marginalized communities. That is the logic of eugenics: to remove the literal genetic traits of plants and people. Eugenics seeks to disappear and/or deny the rights of anyone who is seen as burdensome or not ‘useful’ under capitalism, including: immigrant & refugee communities; people living with physical, emotional, developmental and neurodivergent disabilities; People of Color and Indigenous communities; and Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans & Non Binary communities.
We honor the recent 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, standing with movement organizations in the South, as we collectively look back and name the eugenic violence of the U.S. government in the aftermath of this storm. We must remember the criminalizing and killing of southern Black and Brown, disabled, immigrant and refugee, elderly, youth and working class families left behind while merely trying to survive. At that time, the state apparatus of eugenics looked like the Representative John LaBruzzo in 2008 proposing a sterilization program in New Orleans because he believed the storm –as other right wingers did– was a crisis of over population rather than a lack of government infrastructure and federal emergency preparedness. Now eugenics looks like the rampant disappearance of immigrant and refugee communities by ICE; or the recent dismantling of infrastructures like FEMA and EPA which is the only albeit fragile attempt by the state to ensure any post-storm/natural disaster response. We see this proposal and others as war crimes on poor Black, Indigenous, migrant and refugee, disabled, queer and trans communities in this country. We remember Hurricane Katrina not as a “natural” disaster, but as a national disaster of displacement, eugenic violence, policing, erasure, racism, classism and state control of care. We are in solidarity with all those who survived Hurricane Katrina and fought back —and with the many survivors of the storms that have followed.
Our role at HHP is to create a space for health practitioners, community organizers, researchers, and everyone in between to interrupt the logic of eugenics within the system that claims to provide care. We name this system the Medical Industrial Complex, or, the MIC. We situate ourselves grappling with the contradiction of the care systems in the United States which on one hand act as safety nets, and on the other, extend the harms and abuses of the carceral system in a multitude of ways.
In 2025, we are once again experiencing a fragmentation of the collective narrative of both care & control. One way HHP has built resistance for over 15 years is through a public living breathing timeline that is collecting memories & stories of care as well as control. We see the timeline as a direct resistance tool building our arsenal of collective remembering. This is anti-eugenics work. When navigating the timeline, you can select filters for disability justice, fatphobia, and more. We do not see these as data points or objects. Instead, each story on the timeline is a memory point of our people, collectives, and communities. Alongside stories of harm, we include the myriad acts of resistance, care and repair. From the first 2005 articulation and praxis of the disability justice movement to Carnegie Mellon’s public apology in 2020 on their role in the eugenics movement – we understand that with each act of harm, erasure & violence, there are also people rising up, creating care systems & of course resisting.
HHP is made up of people with a range of experiences and approaches to intervene on the MIC. We carry that same commitment to how and when we partner. In particular, our commitment is to catalyze others doing resistance work within the Medical Industrial Complex (MIC). One way HHP has built this power is by creating an Organizing Institute on the MIC. We build annual cohorts of individual healing/health practitioners from across geographical regions with the goal of strategizing on interventions together– from fighting austerity measures like Medicaid cuts, or finding subtle ways in which eugenics has woven itself into our medical practices; practices such as racial bias, isolation amongst providers due to rank, and more. Within the cohort, we learn from others in the network and root each intervention within a theory of change; incorporating deep understandings of land, work, bodies and spirit into each step which we take.
In these times of heightened fear, tremendous violence and repression, we believe that the most important sites of resilience and care are family, community, and kin networks that are grounded in culture, memory, dignity and consent. We fight for structures and robust systems that can support our people and take care of our communities. So whether you’re a practitioner within a clinic, whether you’re someone who is holding the contradiction of the working within the MIC, or you’re someone who is showing up for your kin in all types of solidarity work– providing food, knowing your rights resources, or any other thing in between– your work is integral.
We know it has been said many times and it is always true. We need each other. Our hope is that HHP’s work can be a support to weaving the strategies of collective care and liberation across our communities and the struggles against eugenics. And it is for this reason that we affirm what we have always known; our bodies are not disposable; our lands and seeds are not expendable; and our memories & lives will not be erased.
*pronatalism: The advocacy of reproduction and birth rates being high & promoting it as a way to measure an individual’s value & contribution