Leetso: the Powerful Yellow MonsterThe monster was born on July 16, 1945 at Alamogordo, New Mexico,
when the first atomic bomb exploded
Esther Yazzie and Jim Zion
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Mining uranium in the Navajo Nation. Photo by Milton Snow. Used courtesy the Navajo Nation Museum.To see a more indepth version of this article see: Leetso: the Powerful Yellow Monster
A Navajo Cultural Interpretation of Uranium Mining by Esther Yazzie and Jim Zion
Albuquerque, New Mexico
The Navajo word for “monster” is Nayee. The literal translation is "that which gets in the way of a successful life." Navajos believe that one of the best ways to overcome or weaken a monster as a barrier to life is to name it. Every evil - each monster - has a name. Uranium has a name in Navajo. It is leetso - meaning "yellow brown" or "yellow dirt". Aside from its literal translation, the word carries a powerful connotation. Sometimes, when we translate a Navajo word into English, we say it "sounds like" something. I think it sounds like a reptile; like a monster. It is a monster, as I will explain.
The Monster was fertilized in 1896, when radioactivity was discovered, and again in 1898, when the Curies uncovered atomic energy. It took shape in 1934, when Enrico Fermi achieved nuclear fission, and on December 2, 1942, when the first successful nuclear chain reaction took place under a sports stadium at the University of Chicago. The monster was born on July 16,1945 at Alamogordo, New Mexico, when the first atomic bomb exploded.
Navajos were the midwife of the monster, although they did not know it at the time . The Bureau of Indian Affairs discovered a uranium-vanadium bearing mineral in Navajo Nation in 1941. At the same time, the Navajo Tribal Council passed a resolution to support the United States in opposition to the threat of Nazi Germany. By the time the war broke out in late 1941, Navajos joined the war effort. Many enlisted in the American armed forces. They joined the military at rates far higher than the general population. Navajo patriots did the military to serve in Korea, Vietnam, and other places of confrontation. They also did their part on the nuclear front: Navajo lands contributed thirteen million tons of uranium ore from 1945 through 1988. The nuclear industry dug the world' s largest underground or deep uranium mine was at a site by Mt. Taylor. That mountain is Tsoodzil in our language, the sacred mountain of the south. Navajos had no say about the desecration of that sacred place by mining. The Laguna mine operated from 1979 through 1982; the Mount Taylor mine from 1979 through 1990. Mining created a boomtown environment, with all its associated violence. Mining took place throughout the Navajo Nation, and as of today, there are at least one thousand abandoned and unreclaimed uranium mines within the Navajo Nation. We have not yet discovered the extent of the toxic waste which came from the mills and plants which processed uranium and other products. In the aftermath of the atomic warfare and energy industry, people talk about using Indian lands to store nuclear waste....
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