Judy Pasternack's Yellow Dirt

1604 Words7 Pages
From the 1930s to the 1960s, the United States deliberately used and discarded an entire tribe of people as the Navajos worked unprotected, in the uranium mines that fueled the Manhattan Project and the Cold War between Germany and the U.S. In Judy Pasternack’s book, Yellow Dirt: An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed, she documents this toxic legacy of uranium mining in the Navajo lands of northeastern Arizona, where radioactive dust wound up in the homes and drinking water, putting hundreds of Navajo miners at great risk. Pasternack takes us through the journey of the Dine’, or the Navajo people, after the uprising of uranium mines that surrounded a Indian Reservation bordering Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. She elaborates on the causes of the war and how the U.S. created a discreet system of Indian assimilation that incorporated the Navajo Indians in a number of ways. Through her writing, she simultaneously illustrated the many instances of Indian resistance throughout this period of Indian incorporation and described the many short-term and long-term consequences that the Dine’ endured during and after the falling of this illegitimate system. Overall, Pasternack used Yellow Dirt to exhibit the powerful chronicle of both the scandal of neglect and the Navajos’ fight for justice. This journey…show more content…
Their country desperately needed it to make atomic bombs and they sent geologists out to the reservation. Their cover story was that they were looking for another mineral called vanadium that hardens steel. They sent back cables where they found the uranium. Since they weren't allowed to use the U-word, uranium, they called it S-37, SOM. A Cold War was taking place between Germany and Communism, and America worked feverishly to stockpile more of the most deadly weapons ever known (Pasternak 6). This is when mining industries began to
Show More
Related

  • Judy Pasternack's Yellow Dirt

    1602 Words  | 7 Pages

    1930s to the 1960s, the United States deliberately used and discarded an entire tribe of people as the Navajos worked unprotected, in the uranium mines that fueled the Manhattan Project and the Cold War between Germany and the U.S. In Judy Pasternack’s book, Yellow Dirt: An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed, she documents this toxic legacy of uranium mining in the Navajo lands of northeastern Arizona, where radioactive dust wound up in the homes and drinking water, putting hundreds

    Read More

More about Judy Pasternack's Yellow Dirt

Open Document