Nuclear Nuevo México: Colonialism and the Effects of the Nuclear Industrial Complex on Nuevomexicanos

In the 1940s military and scientific personnel chose the Pajarito Plateau to site Project Y of the secret Manhattan Project, where scientists developed the atomic bomb. Nuevomexicanas/os and Tewa people were forcibly dispossessed from their ranches and sacred land in north-central New Mexico with inequitable or no compensation. Contrary to previous works that suppress Nuevomexicana/o presence throughout U.S. nuclear history, __Nuclear Nuevo México__ focuses on recovering the voices and stories that have been lost or ignored in the telling of this history. By recuperating these narratives, Myrriah Gómez tells a new story of New Mexico, one in which the nuclear history is not separate from the collective colonial history of Nuevo México but instead demonstrates how earlier eras of settler colonialism laid the foundation for nuclear colonialism in New Mexico. Gómez examines the experiences of Nuevomexicanas/os who have been impacted by the nuclear industrial complex, both the weapons industry and the commercial industry. Gómez argues that Los Alamos was created as a racist project that targeted poor and working-class Nuevomexicana/o farming families, along with their Pueblo neighbors, to create a nuclear empire. The resulting imperialism has left a legacy of disease and distress throughout New Mexico that continues today. "Nuclear Nuevo México: Identity, Ethnicity, and Resistance in Atomic Third Spaces is the study of the effects of the American nuclear program on Native American and Mexican-American communities in New Mexico. As the United States emerged as a nuclear leader following World War II, Los Alamos, New Mexico, became home to Site Y of the Manhattan Project-home of the atomic bomb. In the process of creating this nuclear technology, human and non-human life was destroyed. The experiences of Native American and Mexican-American communities have been neglected in the history of American nuclear technology. In this study Gómez seeks to show the local history of these two rural communities in New Mexico and how they were touched by the national discourse on the nuclear industrial complex from the spectrum of environmental racism and American exceptionalism. Gómez shows how some of these groups have resisted the mistreatment of their land and communities, while others have become complacent and have acquiesced to American nuclear development. The author incorporates the stories of Native American and Mexican American communities into the history of American nuclear technological development"-- Provided by publisher.