[Images description: a Twitter thread by Alisa Lynn Valdés, M.S., @ AlisaValdesRod1. It goes as follows:
“This quote, from the @ nytimes review of the Oppenheimer film: (quote) “He served as director of a clandestine weapons lab built in a near-desolate stretch of Los Alamos, in New Mexico” (end quote)… It was inhabited by Hispanos. They were given less than 24 hr to leave. Their farms bulldozed. 1.
Many of those families had been on the same land for centuries. The Oppenheimer’s crew literally shot all of their livestock through the head and bulldozed them. People fled on foot with nowhere to go. Land rich, money poor. Their land seized by the government. 2.
All of the Hispano NM men who were displaced by the labs later were hired to work with beryllium by Oppenheimer. The white men got protective gear. The Hispano men did not. 3.
The Hispano men all died of berylliosis. These were US citizens, folks. Their land taken, animals killed, farms bulldozed, forced to work for the people who took everything from them, and killed by those people. 4.
For 20 years I have been trying to sell a film based on the story of Loyda Martinez, a remarkable whistleblower whose family’s land was seized for the labs. Her dad was one of the men who died from beryllium exposure at the labs. She later went to work there too. 5.
She is a computer whiz who rose to the top of her department at Los Alamos. Then she started digging for info on the Hispano men the labs killed, like her father. She filed a class action lawsuit, and won. 6.
The first Hispano governor of NM, Bill Richardson, appointed Loyda to run the state’s human rights commission. She then filed a second class-action against Los Alamos, on behalf of women scientists not paid fairly. 7.
But, no. We want more films about the “complex and troubled” “heroic” white men, who conducted their GENIUS in a “virtually unpopulated” place. These are ALL lies. This is mythology in service to white supremacy and the military industrial complex, masquerading as “nuanced.” 8.
Because of what the labs did to the local Hispano people in northern NM, our communities now have the highest rates of heroin overdose deaths in the nation. The generational trauma and forced poverty is outrageous. We need the real stories of Oppenheimer to be told. End.”
End description.]
requested by anonymous:
RATING:PARTIALLY RELIABLE
It is true that Hispano people inhabited the Pajarito Plateau before they were displaced by the lab. Most sources state were given 48 hours to leave, not ‘less than 24 hours’ as the tweets claim.
In 1942, the U.S. Army gave 32 Hispano families on the Pajarito Plateau 48 hours to leave their homes and land, in some cases at gunpoint, to build the lab that would create the world’s first atomic bombs, according to relatives of those removed and a former lab employee.’
The claim that 'many of those families had been on the same land for centuries’ seems to be untrue, as the Pajarito Plateau was abandoned by it’s population by the late 16th century, and was not repopulated until the late 19th century.Therefore the families would not have been settled there for centuries, but around 55 years at most, if these dates are correct.
From an Atomic Heritage Foundation article on Los Alamos: 'Though abandoned by the end of the sixteenth century, the area was forever changed by these peoples. […] Descendants of these early Spanish settlers began settling on the Pajarito Plateau in the nineteenth century.’
From a National Park Service article on Los Alamos: 'Although people had been using the Pajarito Plataeu on a seasonal basis, homesteading originally began in March 1887 when Juan Louis Garcia filed for a homesteaded. The majority of the homesteaders on the plataeu were Hispanic.’
Loyda Martinez has recounted that homes were bulldozed and that some (not all as said in the tweets) livestock were shot, and some let loose. The National Nuclear Security Administration has denied that homes were destroyed or that livestock were killed.
From Reuters article “Oppenheimer’ and the story behind those who lost their land to the lab’: 'Homes were bulldozed, livestock shot or let loose, and families given little or no compensation, according to Loyda Martinez, 67, who worked as a computer scientist for 32 years at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and cited accounts from evicted ranching and farming families who are her neighbors in the Espanola Valley.
A National Nuclear Security Administration spokesperson said Hispanic farmers were compensated at a significantly lower rate than white property owners but the agency was not aware of homes being destroyed and animals killed or abandoned. The agency did not address whether homesteaders were forcefully removed.’
The claims that all of the Hispano men who were displaced went to work at the lab, and all died of berrylliosis after not being provided protective gear like the white workers, is suspect. It is unlikely that all of them would die of berylliosis, as berylliosis only affects 2-5% of workers exposed to beryllium. Furthermore, the mortality rate is 5-38%, so the odds of the entire group dying from this condition seems extremely unlikely.
From a scientific paper on Berylliosis: 'CBD is a hypersensitivity granulomatous disease that occurs in 2 to 5% of beryllium-exposed workers […] Overall mortality rates are 5% to 38%’
Furthermore, I could not find any source suggesting that the Hispano men were given less protective gear than white workers. Whilst exposure to radiation undoubtedly put health at risk, it does not seem that this was targeted at the Hispano workers.
Furthermore, I could not find any evidence that Loyda Martinez filed or won a class action lawsuit regarding the discrimination, lack of protective gear, or deaths of the Hispano workers.
From a Mary Sue article on the twitter thread (please note that the Mary Sue is less reliable than most sources I use): 'Valdes also alleges that Martinez filed and won another lawsuit against the lab for denying Hispano men safety gear when working with beryllium. However, there are no public records of this lawsuit, and the claims about Martinez’s father and other Hispano men being victims of beryllium exposure cannot be verified.’
However, it does seem that Loyda Martinez did lobby the government on this subject, even if there was no lawsuit.Her father did die after working with beryllium, and she did serve on New Mexico human rights commission.
In 2000 Congress acknowledged that radiation and other toxins had contributed to the deaths or illnesses of thousands of nuclear weapons workers.
The Department of Labor set up a compensation fund for those affected but it took years for families to be paid, said Martinez, who served on New Mexico’s state human rights commission in the early 2000s.”
The second class action suit referenced does seem to exist, and succeeded in getting a payout to female and hispano workers who faced pay discrimination.Loyda Martinez was one of plaintiffs.
From a Mary Sue article on the twitter thread (please note that the Mary Sue is less reliable than most sources I use): 'Valdés detailed the story of Loyda Martinez, who in 2006 was one of five plaintiffs to originate a class-action discrimination lawsuit against Los Alamos National Laboratory for paying female and male Hispano workers less than white males. The plaintiffs succeeded in obtaining a $12 million award for members of the lawsuit.’
I have had difficulty verifying the claim that 'Because of what the labs did to the local Hispano people in northern NM, our communities now have the highest rates of heroin overdose deaths in the nation.’New Mexico has the 6th highest drug overdose mortality rate of US states, but heroin is not the leading cause of drug death in the state.
From an AP News article on overdose and drug use in New Mexico: 'Fentanyl and meth have surpassed heroin and prescription opioids as the leading causes of overdose deaths in the state. In fact, the two drugs were involved in 78% of overdose deaths in 2020.’
Furthermore, the claim that the labs inflict 'forced poverty’ in the community is not backed by statistics.
