Los Alamos Displaced a lot of Homes
In the movie, Oppenheimer says there is a boy’s school and Indians performing burial rights on the land proposed for nuclear testing. But this wasn’t the case. The Pajarito Plateau had the boys school and Native American ceremonial sites, but it also had thirty two homesteads. Homesteaders had forty-eight hours to leave their homes and land, surrendering it for the Los Alamos Laboratory project.
The National Nuclear Security Administration claims homesteaders were compensated, but at a lower rate than normal, as the homesteaders were Hispanic and compensated at a lower rate than Caucasian property owners would have been. The homes were leveled, and the livestock set loose or shot (this, too, is disputed by the National Nuclear Security Administration, who claim they didn’t know these things were being done). There have been class action lawsuits over the treatment of these homesteaders.
