First We Bombed New Mexico

SANTA BARBARA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024 REVIEW! The Trinity nuclear test, conducted on July 16, 1945, and depicted in Oppenheimer, was the first detonation of a nuclear weapon in human history. It was conducted in secret in a remote region of New Mexico, but of course, it wasn’t devoid of people. The resulting fallout rained down on people in the area and made its way across North America. Co-writer Joel Marcus and co-writer/director Lois Lipman’s First We Bombed New Mexico demands that we deal with the consequences of this.

The documentary largely follows Tina Cordova, an activist and cancer survivor, as she and her associates educate people in the region about the events of the past and try to catalyze a movement and seek recognition and justice in Washington. Along the way, we are introduced to people affected by the nuclear test, even though it was nearly 78 years ago. These include firsthand audio accounts of the people who were there and have now mostly passed away. Modern footage of people living in the region highlights rare forms of cancer believed to be due to the test.

“…catalyze a movement and seek recognition and justice in Washington [for those affected by the Trinity Test].”

First We Bombed New Mexico points out the extraordinary amount of injustices associated with this episode of history. Not everyone near enough to be affected was evacuated when the bomb was detonated. People were not only not told what had happened or even what had happened after the fact but were lied to. In many regions, radiation exceeded the agreed-upon limits for evacuation by a wide margin. The people who knew about it left to save themselves but did not tell the residents. When people started turning up with cancer, it was not investigated. To add insult to injury, when legislation was passed in 1990 to help the victims of later Nevada nuclear tests and certain uranium miners, Trinity test victims were left out. Because the residents of this region of New Mexico are mainly Hispanic and Native American, it sure looks like racism played a role.

Some families from that part of New Mexico have had cancer for generations. One of the most moving stories is that of Trevor and Katherine Steele. Trevor, though a young man, has glioblastoma, a cancer whose primary risk factor is ionizing radiation. He grew up in the affected region of New Mexico, where there is statistically unlikely to be even a single case. As we see Trevor degenerate, we can’t help but feel his and his wife’s pain. This puts a heart and soul into a problem that can seem like a set of statistics.

Of course, no one can say with certainty that Trevor’s cancer, or any of those depicted, is the result of the Trinity test. The best way to do that would be to do an epidemiological study to show elevated cancer rates in the region compared to what would normally be expected. For a while, studies were deliberately not done, no doubt partly because of secrecy and partly because the government was scared of what it would find. However, another impediment is that good records are no longer available if they ever were. Sometimes, the cancers were unrecognized or unreported. And people in small towns have to travel to a nearby (or not so nearby) city to seek treatment. No one has tied all those cases to their origin.