LOS ALAMOS, NM — It was the summer of 1945 when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan, killing thousands as waves of destructive energy wiped out two cities. It was a decisive move that helped end World War II, but survivors and generations to come were left to struggle with illnesses from radiation exposure.
At that time, American President Harry Truman called it “the greatest scientific gamble in history,” and said the rain of destruction from the sky would usher in a new concept of strength and power. What he didn’t mention was that the federal government had already tested this new power on American soil.
Just weeks earlier, the early morning sky in southern New Mexico exploded with an incredible flash of light, rattling windows hundreds of miles away and sending a trail of fallout stretching up the East Coast.
As of the Trinity Test rained for days. Children played in it, thinking it was snow. It covered fresh laundry hanging outside to dry. It contaminated crops, scorched livestock and found its way into water reservoirs used for drinking water.
The story of New Mexico’s downwinders — the survivors of the world’s first atomic explosion and those who helped mine the uranium needed for the nation’s arsenal — is little known. But that’s changing now that the documentary “First We Bombed New Mexico” is winning awards at film festivals across the United States.
It is now being shown in the northern New Mexico community of Los Alamos as part of the Oppenheimer Film Festival. It’s a rare opportunity for the once-secretive city that has long celebrated the scientific discoveries of J. Robert Oppenheimer — the father of the atomic bomb — to ponder another, more painful piece of the country’s nuclear legacy.
Directed and produced by Lois Lipman, the film explores the displacement of Spanish-speaking ranching families when the Manhattan Project took over the Pajarito Plateau in the early 1940s, the lives changed forever in the Tularosa Basin where the bomb was detonated, and the Native American miners who were never warned about the health risks of working in the uranium industry.
Their heartbreaking stories, interwoven with the testimonies of professors and doctors, brought tears to Los Alamos, as well as to Austin, Texas, Annapolis, Maryland, and every other city where the film has been shown.
Andi Kron, a longtime Los Alamos resident, was impressed by the cinematography but also shocked when she learned more about it.
“It’s just unbelievable,” she said, noting that even people who have been involved in studying various aspects of the Trinity Test decades later are still unaware of the plight of the downwinders.
Lipman and others hope to distribute the documentary more widely as part of an awareness campaign as area residents push for reauthorization of the federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act and expansion to include more people exposed to nuclear weapons work conducted by the federal government.
Over the past 10 years, Lipman has followed Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, as she appeared before Congress, held numerous town hall meetings, and shared meals and prayers with community members.
Lipman voiced her frustrations at the Los Alamos premiere, noting that despite testimony about the injustices that followed the Trinity Test, the federal government has still not acknowledged the harm done nearly 80 years ago.
As the film notes, about half a million people — mostly Hispanics and Native Americans — lived within 150 miles (241.4 kilometers) of the explosion. The area was neither remote nor uninhabited, despite government claims that no one lived there and no one was injured.
In the film, Cordova — a cancer survivor herself — tells members of the community that they will no longer be martyrs. Her family is one of many in Tularosa and Carrizozo who have seen mothers, fathers, siblings and children die from cancer.
“They were counting on us being inexperienced, uneducated, and unable to fend for ourselves. We’re not those people anymore,” Cordova said. “I’m not that person. You’re not those people.”
The United States Senate passed a bill earlier this year which would finally recognize the residents of the Leeward States in New Mexico and several other states where nuclear defense work has been done resulted in contamination and exposureHowever, the bipartisan measure failed in the U.S. House of Representatives over concerns from some Republican lawmakers about its cost.
Cordova and others gathered in Las Cruces on Wednesday to protest as U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson visited New Mexico to campaign for Republican congressional candidate Yvette Herrell. The downwinders have promised to make it a campaign issue in the must-win district, but also in dozens of other Republican districts across the U.S. that would benefit from an expansion of RECA.
At the film festival, Cordova told the audience that people have been living separate lives for too long, a poignant statement, especially for Los Alamos where science is sometimes compartmentalized as experts work to solve specific aspects of larger problems.
“There are no borders. We are not separate people. We all live together in this state and I would like to think that is why we consider each other as neighbors, friends, we are relatives with some of you,” she said, thanking them for being there to hear another side of the story.
“We must stand together for what is right,” she said, drawing applause.
The audience included employees of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, county officials and a state senator.
Bernice Gutierrez was born in Carrizozo, just days before the bomb exploded. She had no words to describe how important it is to her that the people of Los Alamos learn about the downwinders.
“I think a lot of people were surprised,” she said after the first screening. “They don’t know the history.”
The Trinity Site was on a short list of possible locations for testing the bomb. The other sites were two in California, one in Texas and another in Colorado. The flat, dry nature of the White Sands Missile Range won out, with scientists initially thinking that predictable winds would limit the spread of radiation.
That turned out not to be the case, as New Mexico’s summer rainy season often brings erratic weather. In addition to the shifting winds, the rain the following night meant that fresh precipitation likely found its way into the rainwater collected by residents’ water tanks, according to a 2010 study from the Centers for Disease Control and PreventionThe CDC also noted that another route of exposure involved dairy cows and goats, which residents depend on for their livelihood.
New modeling used by a team of researchers led by Princeton University showed in 2023 that nuclear explosions carried out between 1945 and 1962 in New Mexico and Nevada led to widespread radioactive contamination. The team reported that the world’s first atomic detonation made a significant contribution to exposure in New Mexico, eventually reaching 46 states, as well as Canada and Mexico.
Cordova said the federal government failed to warn residents before or after the detonation and minimized it for decades because “we didn’t matter, we were expendable.”
“There is no excuse for that,” she said.