Local author sheds light on the effects of ‘nuclear colonialism’ in New Mexico

LOS LUNAS — What began as a college seminar paper for one Los Lunas resident has evolved into “Nuclear Nuevo México” — an award-winning book that is generating important conversations around the world surrounding nuclear issues, both past and present.

Author Myrriah Gómez, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Honors College at the University of New Mexico. For more than 15 years, she has been researching colonialism and the effects of the nuclear industrial complex on Nuevomexicanos.

Gómez became interested in this work after learning her great-grandparents were dispossessed from their ranch on the Pajarito Plateau in the 1940s due to the area being chosen to site the Manhattan Project, where the first atomic bomb was developed and detonated.

“My family signed on to the class action lawsuit that was filed by the Pajarito Plateau Homesteaders Inc., so when I started my master’s, I did some research on that and wrote a paper for a class seminar,” said Gómez. “At that point, I knew I wanted to get this story out into the world.”

While stories of the bomb’s role in World War II and its creators have been told, Gómez said the importance of her book is that it focuses on people who were directly affected by nuclear colonialism in New Mexico and whose stories have been historically overlooked and even ignored.

“That’s kind of the centerpiece of the book. I approach it using a framework of testimonio, which comes from Latin American studies, and it basically is this philosophy or methodology that says that if you can tell one person’s story, that story is representative of more people in the community,” Gómez said.

“A lot of the interviews that I collected actually didn’t make it into the book, but the ones that did, I just feel very fortunate that people trusted me to tell those stories about their family,” she said.

Through her research, Gómez learned many of the Pajarito Plateau residents forced off their land did not receive notice and, if they did, many did not understand it because they did not speak English.

“They kicked the people off their land, they disenfranchised local Pueblo people, as well as Nuevomexicanos, and then they never left,” said Gómez. “Some of them were compensated at the time, though not all of them were compensated originally, and they were not compensated equally or at market value.”

People beyond Pajarito Plateau were also affected due to the bomb’s radioactive fallout. Something interesting to note, said Gómez, is Belen had been selected as an evacuation site if needed for the aftermath of the Trinity test, but the evacuation orders never came.

“Belen was pretty close in terms of the fallout of Trinity, so had they evacuated they would have moved people to Belen,” she said. “They should have evacuated because some of the monitors did record those readings that they had agreed upon that if they reached these levels, they would evacuate, but they were just very afraid of alerting anybody to what was happening.”

Gómez said there are many people in southern Valencia County and nearby areas who have records of cancers or other illnesses that have been linked to overexposure of radiation. She also notes in the book that her grandpa and his brothers who worked on the Manhattan Project died of cancer likely from the work they did there.

“I would encourage people to look up the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium and learn more if they’re interested,” she said.

Gómez’s book also addresses how nuclear colonialism has endured and is continuing to affect New Mexicans now 80 years later. She said some of the contemporary chapters in her book are already outdated, demonstrating how nuclear issues are still active and impactful in New Mexico.

The chapter on the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, for example, which focuses on the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act has seen some updates.

“Basically, people are no longer eligible to apply for that compensation as of June of this summer, so a lot has shifted even since I finished writing that chapter,” she said. “The only thing that hasn’t happened is they’re still not covered, so we’re still fighting that battle.”

Gómez also writes about potential new nuclear threats posed to New Mexicans in her book, including Los Alamos National Laboratory being tasked with building 30 new plutonium pits per year, which are the cores of nuclear weapons. She said Los Alamos is the only place in the country where pit production is taking place now, as the pit production facility in Rocky Flats, Colo., was shut down by the FBI in the 1990s for environmental crimes.

“The United States is increasing its nuclear arsenal, and the cores that are being built at Los Alamos will be used in a new warhead, which is called the W87-1,” Gómez said.

The influx of new weapons produces more nuclear waste, and currently there is nowhere to store it, she said.

“There’s supposed to be a plan to be looking at and opening a new repository; they’re not doing that yet. Instead, they’re trying to ask that (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant) is expanded in southern New Mexico, again, putting the brunt of burden on New Mexicans and New Mexico,” said Gómez.

If we don’t have anything to do with the current waste, it’s going to pose major health and safety risks for people, and New Mexico is the only place that’s happening right now, both the weapons production with the pits and the waste.”

Since its release in November 2022, Gómez’s book has been resonating with people far and wide. At the beginning of the year, “Nuclear Nuevo México” was awarded a Southwest Book Award by the Border Regional Library Association, which Gómez said she was honored to receive.

Her book is also making an impression internationally as Gómez said it is being taught across the globe and is currently being translated by a Japanese scholar to be published in Japan. She is excited to announce that “Nuclear Nuevo México” was also recently awarded an International Latino Book Award.

“I think it resonates with audiences in other parts of the world that have also been impacted by nuclear issues,” said Gómez. “I was on a call with the (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) in the spring, and I’ll be in Mexico this fall and Australia in December, so I think the book is doing what I had always dreamed it would do which is to not only educate people on what’s happened in New Mexico, but to have conversations about how we have all of these shared experiences.”

The book is about 150 pages and, unlike many academic books, Gómez said it is written to be accessible to general readership. It can be found at the Los Lunas Public Library and in local bookstores across New Mexico. It can also be purchased online through Amazon.com and the University of Arizona Press website.

“The question that I’m constantly asking or trying to answer in the book is why New Mexico and why New Mexicans? I hope that the book starts conversation and that people get interested in learning more about what’s happening today, and become involved in the public processes,” said Gómez.

“New Mexico became kind of this focal point for the 1940s Manhattan Project, but there has not been a lot of discussion about what’s happening there today, and I think that if people knew what was happening, we would probably be having different conversations.”