--- title: 'Oppenheimer' Misses Uranium’s Deadly Grip on the Navajo description: We must all recognize the continued suffering and sacrifice of the Navajo that built the atomic era, writes Buu V. Nygren. canonical: https://time.com/6296470/oppenheimer-navajo-uranium-mining-essay/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-07-21T14:33:07.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:51:03.501Z article:section: Ideas og:title: The Navajo Suffered From Nuclear Testing. 'Oppenheimer' Doesn't Tell Our Story og:description: We must recognize the continued suffering and sacrifice of the Navajo that built the atomic era, writes Buu V. Nygren. og:url: https://time.com/6296470/oppenheimer-navajo-uranium-mining-essay/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc4a3bd19279402ec/698a3ed90116826cdb983430/No-Mines-Graffiti-Navajo-2022.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: No-Mines-Graffiti-Navajo-2022 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Navajo Suffered From Nuclear Testing. 'Oppenheimer' Doesn't Tell Our Story twitter:description: We must recognize the continued suffering and sacrifice of the Navajo that built the atomic era, writes Buu V. Nygren. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc4a3bd19279402ec/698a3ed90116826cdb983430/No-Mines-Graffiti-Navajo-2022.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- # The Navajo Suffered From Nuclear Testing. _Oppenheimer_ Doesn't Tell Our Story > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=86f4523f-f6fa-4352-9825-65416275b952&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Real Oppenheimer - A Nuclear Historian's Perspective [Watch (HLS stream): The Real Oppenheimer - A Nuclear Historian's Perspective](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/I2oPNLYU.m3u8) (4:43)  _Published 2023-07-21. As the movie "Oppenheimer" opens across America, Alex Wellerstein - Historian of Nuclear Weapons at Stevens Institute of Technology - gives his perspective on a man he has studied his entire career._ Jul 21, 2023 2:33 PM UTC  Graffiti opposing mines on the reservation is seen in an abandoned building on Sept. 12, 2022 on the Navajo Nation west of Tuba City, Arizona. Graffiti opposing mines on the reservation is seen in an abandoned building on Sept. 12, 2022 on the Navajo Nation west of Tuba City, Arizona. David McNew—Getty Images by [Buu V. Nygren](https://time.com/author/dr-buu-v-nygren/) ## Buu V. Nygren Jul 21, 2023 2:33 PM UTC Christopher Nolan’s highly-anticipated [_Oppenheimer_](https://time.com/6295742/oppenheimer-review/) comes to the big screen five days after the 44th anniversary of the Church Rock uranium mill spill, when [94 million gallons](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1211503-gao-report-on-navajo-uranium-mines.html) of radioactive waste poured into the Puerco River, spanning northwestern New Mexico and northern Arizona, and across the Navajo Nation. Children played in the contaminated water, while livestock drank from radioactive aquifers. What [came next](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222290/)—cancers, miscarriages, and mysterious illnesses—is a direct consequence of America’s race for nuclear hegemony. It’s an accomplishment built on top of the bodies of Navajo men, women, and children—the lived experience of nuclear weapons development in the United States. But, as usual, Hollywood chose to gloss over them. The Navajo people cannot afford to be, yet again, erased from history. Hollywood has a lot of work to do, and they can start by standing with the Navajo people and urging Congress to provide just compensation for victims of radiation exposure. As part of this effort, we must all recognize the continued suffering and sacrifice that built the atomic era. From the [1940s to the 1990s](https://swuraniumimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/17.01.17-Gallup-Independent.pdf), the U.S. used the Navajo Nation to supply them with uranium for the manufacture of nuclear weapons and energy. While ownership of the mines was transferred from the federal government to private companies in 1971, the U.S. failed to enforce proper safety standards, leaving the sites unregulated until 1990 when the last mine closed. More than 500 [now abandoned](https://www.epa.gov/navajo-nation-uranium-cleanup/abandoned-mines-cleanup) mines cover our land as a result. Miners and their families were kept in the dark about the heinous dangers of radiation exposure, so they went about their daily activities like any other community. Workers drank the mine’s cool spring water, while their wives washed their yellowed work clothes. Families [built homes](https://www.epa.gov/navajo-nation-uranium-cleanup/addressing-uranium-contaminated-structures) with local rocks and sediment and let their children play for hours [on uranium byproducts](https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/mill-tailings.html), including [mine debris piles](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/04/10/473547227/for-the-navajo-nation-uranium-minings-deadly-legacy-lingers). Despite the U.S. government’s [awareness of the risks](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222290/) inherent in uranium mining, most Navajos did not know what radiation was—let alone the danger presented by every second of exposure. --- ### More from TIME --- **_Read More:_** [**_Without Indigenous History, There Is No U.S. History_**](https://time.com/6274071/us-history-indigenous-americans/) Growing up in a community that has an abandoned uranium mine in Red Mesa, Arizona, I witnessed firsthand the heartbreaking and enduring consequences of uranium mining on my people. Despite the passage of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) in 1990, justice remains elusive for Navajo families who have suffered from the devastating and long-lasting health and environmental effects of the uranium mining industry on Navajo land. While RECA has provided life-saving healthcare coverage for some uranium miners, the legislation’s limited scope has left many Navajo people suffering from radiation exposure without any compensation. The list of diseases covered by the law is, to start, woefully incomplete. Renal cancer, nephritis, and kidney tubal tissue injury are just some of the conditions that were initially excluded because of a lack of available scientific data connecting them to radiation exposure. RECA also [excludes Navajo miners](https://swuraniumimpacts.org/post-71-uranium-workers-committee/) employed after 1971 from eligibility for compensation. Yet, the work they did, and the dangers they faced, remained exactly the same. This is not a problem of the past. As of August 1, 2022, more than 53,804 claims have been filed under RECA. Of those, more than 12% identified as Navajos. Navajo miners and their families suffer a wide variety of cancers and radiation-related illnesses, with new victims [regularly diagnosed](https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/sites/navajo%5Fbirth%5Fcohort%5Fstudy/index.html). Women living near the mines have experienced stillbirths and miscarriages at abhorrent rates and their children [carry the physical legacy](http://www.sric.org/nbcs/index.php#:~:text=The%20Navajo%20Birth%20Cohort%20Study%20is%20a%20collaborative,health%20impacts%20of%20living%20near%20abandoned%20uranium%20mines) of the Cold War through developmental delays, chromosomal aberrations, and other birth defects. The Navajo people have suffered and sacrificed so much, while directly contributing to our country’s post-war pursuit of nuclear superiority. And while our Navajo Code Talkers are esteemed for heroically saving countless lives in the South Pacific during World War II, our uranium miners have largely been overlooked. The only thank-you for their years of patriotic service has been death, disease, and decades of advocacy to recognize their sacrifice. Time is slipping away for Navajo uranium miners and their descendants, their hopes dangling in the balance. With each passing day, their weary bodies bear the weight of diseases inflicted by their labor; the clock ticks, mercilessly. As they wait for existing claims to be processed and for expanded eligibility through the RECA amendments, their precious time on this earth dwindles, a poignant reminder of the urgent need for justice and compassion. The legacy of uranium mining on the Navajo is a perpetual blemish on our nation’s history with its Native people, and the disregard of our stories from media and movies like _Oppenheimer_ can’t mean a continued erasure in U.S. policy. Acknowledging the harm done means living up to the intended purpose of RECA: to compensate all those impacted by the harms of the nuclear age. It is only then that my people can begin to heal and our beautiful and sacred land can be restored. We need the world to hear us and provide the justice that has long been denied to our people. ## Transcript [00:00] I don't know if we can be trusted with such a weapon, but we have no choice. [00:15] Robert Oppenheimer was a key figure in the making of the atomic bomb during World War [00:19] II, and a key figure in shaping early American nuclear policy after the war as well. [00:27] That latter part of his work I think is less well known to most people. [00:31] Most people know him as the father of the atomic bomb. [00:34] A lot fewer people know that he was deeply involved with many discussions about maybe [00:39] even the abolition of nuclear weapons, but also how you use nuclear weapons in a modern [00:46] Cold War. [00:47] I have been asked whether in the years to come it will be possible to kill 40 million [00:53] American people in the 20 largest American towns by the use of atomic bombs in a single [01:00] night. I'm afraid that the answer to that question is yes. [01:06] The most interesting thing about Oppenheimer is that by any measure he is not who you would [01:10] have picked to be the scientific director of the Manhattan Project. And people around [01:16] were surprised that he was picked. He had no administrative experience. He had never [01:20] led any group of people larger than a seminar room. His reputation was as a scientist-scientist. [01:26] He is a head in the clouds, lots of equations. He was a terrible teacher. He would chain [01:33] smoke while writing equations over other equations he had already written. This is a sort of [01:37] famous tactic of his. The first thing that Oppenheimer does is he gets together some [01:42] of the top theorists at a conference in Berkeley, and they sit around and they sort of plot [01:48] out what is the problem to be solved in designing a nuclear weapon and sort of making this thing [01:54] happen. And that's what it starts off as being. But the role expands dramatically because it turns [02:00] out to be much harder to make nuclear weapons than they thought. They went into the Manhattan Project [02:06] thinking it would be difficult but sort of modestly achievable and ended up being by some measures [02:12] There may be five times harder than they expected. [02:39] He was afraid that if the first bombs were not sufficiently spectacular that you would [02:45] end up in a world with nuclear arms races and then the next war would be fatal for civilization. [02:52] For him it was important that the first bombing be really awful so that the world gets its [02:56] act together and realizes we can't continue down this path. [03:00] The same path that led to World War I and World War II, World War III is not going to [03:04] be tenable. [03:05] That was his goal from all of this. [03:08] For him, the worst things are in Japan, in some sense, the better. [03:11] If there is another world war, this civilization may go under. [03:19] We need to ask ourselves whether we're doing all we can to avert that. [03:25] Easy to try and make Oppenheimer into a parable. [03:29] And of course, all parables are a parable of our time. [03:31] And so it'll be interesting to see what the parable of Oppenheimer is for us now, as opposed [03:36] to what it was in the 50s or 60s when also fictional media were being made about him, [03:40] or even the 80s. [03:43] But he himself hated being cast as a parable. [03:47] He was very bitterly resistant to any of these things in his time. [03:51] He saw all of these things as being just sort of tawdry and not the right issue to be focusing [03:58] on. [03:59] Science has profoundly altered the conditions of man's life, both materially and in ways [04:05] of the Spirit as well. It has extended the range of questions in which man has a choice. [04:12] It has extended man's freedom to make significant decisions. No one can predict what vast new [04:21] continents of knowledge the future of science will discover. But we know that as long as [04:27] men are free to ask what they will, free to say what they think, free to think what they [04:33] must, science will never regress, and freedom itself will never be wholly lost. 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